The Great Hall was once again rearranged for chaos—ahem, for the reading. Benches dragged into vaguely civilised groupings, enchanted quills
The Great Hall was once again rearranged for chaos—ahem, for the reading. Benches dragged into vaguely civilised groupings, enchanted quills hovering overhead to record notes, and a slightly nervous-looking tea trolley slowly rolling around the edge of the room like it regretted being sentient.
Students murmured to one another, eyes flicking toward the stage at the front where the massive book lay waiting like an execution order wrapped in paper and emotional trauma.
Tonks bounced up, pink-haired and chipper as ever, nearly tripping over her own boots as she took the book and then sat back down.
“Right then,” she said brightly, grinning at the gathered mass like this was story time at a nursery and not the magical equivalent of a courtroom drama. “Your regularly scheduled descent into emotional damage continues. The next chapter’s called Christmas on the Closed Ward, which sounds festive and horrifying. Lovely combination.”
There was a faint, collective groan.
“Do we get biscuits with the trauma this time?” Fred asked, eyeing the tea trolley hopefully.
“No,” McGonagall snapped. “But you will get detention if you interrupt again.”
Fred raised both hands in mock surrender. “Just checking.”
Over at the Gryffindor table, Daphne Greengrass sat primly, looking as composed as ever. Beside her, her younger sister Astoria had her arms folded and was staring around with the faint expression of someone trying not to punch anyone from Hufflepuff.
“I still can’t believe we’re sitting with Gryffindors,” Astoria muttered. “It’s like being surrounded by live-action moral superiority.”
Daphne didn’t even look at her. “Says the girl who hexed a Ravenclaw Prefect last year because he used the last of the hot chocolate.”
“He looked at me funny.”
Sirius leaned in from his seat beside Lupin, peering toward the book. “Let’s hope this chapter contains something uplifting, like Dumbledore finally being publicly held accountable for something.”
“Or Snape getting cursed in the face,” Kingsley murmured.
Snape sneered. “Delightful to see you’re all keeping such mature priorities.”
Horatio Caine, seated with his team near the staff table, adjusted his sunglasses indoors like the cryptid he was. “You know… in my line of work, we call this kind of group tension a red flag.”
Tonks snorted. “In this school, we call it Monday.”
She cleared her throat, cracking the book open and letting the magic hum through the Hall as it prepared to play the memories aloud.
“Alright then,” she said cheerfully. “Let’s get on with it. Christmas on the Closed Ward—and no, before anyone asks, it’s not a bloody comedy.”
The room quieted. The words began to shimmer above the book
Was this why Dumbledore would no longer meet Harry’s eyes? Did he expect to see Voldemort staring out of them, afraid, perhaps, that their vivid green might turn suddenly to scarlet, with catlike slits for pupils? Harry remembered how the snakelike face of Voldemort had once forced itself out of the back of Professor Quirrell’s head and ran his hand over the back of his own, wondering what it would feel like if Voldemort burst out of his skull.
A sharp, audible hiss cut through the silence.
“Albus,” McGonagall snapped, turning toward the Headmaster with a look that could have made granite apologise, “how dare you keep such a thing from him? You should have been honest from the beginning.”
Dumbledore, seated with serene exhaustion and the moral clarity of a wet sponge, folded his hands.
“I believed,” he said slowly, “that burdening Harry with the truth too early might do more harm than good.”
“You let him believe he was going mad!” McGonagall barked. “He’s fifteen, Albus, not a sacrificial lamb in a bloody prophecy!”
Harry shifted uncomfortably in his seat at the Gryffindor table. Daphne reached over and gripped his hand under the table, cool and steady.
Sirius stood, his eyes blazing. “You thought it might do more harm? Did you see what it was doing to him? Did you even look at him at all?”
Lupin rose beside him, voice quieter but no less sharp. “He needed guidance, not distance. Isolation feeds fear, Albus. It does not protect against it.”
Dumbledore sighed, suddenly looking every one of his years. “I see that now.”
“Great,” Sirius growled. “Too bad seeing things after they’ve gone to hell is your speciality.”
From the staff table, Eric Delko leaned sideways toward Calleigh and muttered under his breath, “Okay, is it just me or does this sound like when someone gets possessed in a horror film but everyone ignores it until it’s too late?”
Calleigh, staring at the text like it might sprout teeth, whispered back, “So, Voldemort can, what, just—pop out of people’s heads? That’s normal?”
Horatio Caine adjusted his sunglasses with grave Miami solemnity. “If that ever happens in a suspect interview, I’m retiring.”
Ryan Wolfe, who looked one panic attack away from screaming, blinked rapidly. “So, just to clarify: he’s afraid that a dark lord might be literally living in his brain?”
“Essentially,” Calleigh muttered. “And apparently that’s just Tuesday around here.”
Tonks, still holding the book, raised an eyebrow. “You lot good over there, or do you need a pamphlet on possession and magical head-sharing?”
Horatio gave a small nod. “We’re… adjusting.”
Sirius turned to Harry, now leaning forward on the bench, fists clenched.
“You listen to me, kid,” Sirius said firmly. “You’re not going mad. Alright? That thing’s done enough to you already. We’re not letting it take your mind, too.”
Lupin placed a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Whatever happens, we face it together. You’re not alone.”
Harry gave a small nod, jaw tight, but didn’t speak.
And somewhere in the corner, Umbridge huffed and wriggled in her bindings.
“I see we’re all still blaming authority for a child’s hysteria,” she muttered.
McGonagall turned toward her so fast she nearly cracked her neck. “Dolores, if you speak again, I will transfigure you into something even less pleasant than your personality.”
Umbridge wisely shut her mouth.
Tonks grinned. “Well, that was cheerful. Let’s keep going, shall we?”
He felt dirty, contaminated, as though he were carrying some deadly germ, unworthy to sit on the Underground train back from the hospital with innocent, clean people whose minds and bodies were free of the taint of Voldemort … he had not merely seen the snake, he had been the snake, he knew it now …
There was a ripple of tension through the hall, as if everyone had simultaneously leaned in.
“Merlin,” Ron muttered from the Gryffindor table, frowning. “So that’s what he was thinking about that whole trip back from the hospital. He barely said a word. Thought maybe the eggnog had gone off.”
Fred leaned forward, mock-serious. “He was brooding, clearly. Dark and mysterious. Very Byronic.”
George nodded solemnly. “Terribly romantic. Tragic hero stuff. Next he’ll be scribbling poetry and glaring into the fireplace.”
“Already does the glaring bit,” Ginny quipped. “Usually after someone says ‘Occlumency’.”
Molly, who had been watching Harry like a mother hen expecting her chick to combust, let out a soft sigh.
“Oh, Harry dear,” she said, clutching her tea tighter. “Why didn’t you say anything? You were so quiet—I thought you were just tired or in shock, not… all this.”
Harry flushed slightly and didn’t meet her eye. “Didn’t think anyone wanted to hear it.”
Fred scoffed. “Mate, you could’ve told us you thought Voldemort was after a magic super-weapon and we’d have—”
“—immediately tried to find it first and sell it to the highest bidder,” George finished with a grin.
Molly shot them both a look so sharp it could have sliced through a dragon scale. “You most certainly would not, young men.”
Ginny leaned across the table slightly, frowning at Harry.
“You always think you’ve got to deal with everything on your own,” she said, her voice unusually quiet. “You don’t. You’ve got us. Always.”
There was a flicker of something in Harry’s eyes—surprise, maybe, or guilt—but he gave a tiny nod all the same.
At the staff table, Horatio Caine leaned over to Eric and muttered, “So their evil dark wizard has a shopping list now?”
Eric blinked. “Apparently. This is like if Voldemort robbed a magical Home Depot.”
Ryan, still scribbling confused notes in a small notebook, mumbled, “What kind of weapon could even work against a wizarding government?”
George, overhearing, chirped in cheerfully. “Dunno. But if it’s portable and explodes, I’d like two.”
Tonks grinned behind the book. “Right. Nothing says festive cheer like magical terrorism. Moving on.”
A truly terrible thought then occurred to him, a memory bobbing to the surface of his mind, one that made his insides writhe and squirm like serpents.
What’s he after, apart from followers?
Stuff he can only get by stealth … like a weapon. Something he didn’t have last time.
The words hung in the air like a curse, and several heads turned toward the CSI team, who were huddled together with the energy of four crime scene investigators who’d just found out one of their suspects might be a warlock.
Eric leaned in first, whispering, “Alright, anyone want to take bets on what kind of weapon we’re talking about here?”
Ryan frowned. “Nuclear?”
Horatio, ever composed, murmured, “Seems unlikely. If this Voldemort had access to atomic weaponry, I doubt we’d be sitting in a castle right now.”
Calleigh blinked slowly, scanning the magical crowd with slight disbelief. “Could it be some kind of biological weapon? Magical plague? That’s classic stealth. No explosions, just chaos.”
Ryan nodded grimly. “Yeah, maybe something air-transmissible. Invisible… like an enchanted pathogen or something.”
Eric frowned. “They keep saying ‘stealth’. Could be chemical. Maybe gas-based? Weaponised potions?”
Horatio tilted his head. “Magical sarin. The ultimate silent killer.”
Ryan added, “Or a mind-control device. They do have those love potion things. Scale it up, turn a whole army—”
Calleigh raised a hand. “Okay, no. Absolutely not. If we start going into ‘magical brainwashing gas’, I’m going to lose what’s left of my sanity.”
Eric leaned back, arms crossed. “I mean… it is Voldemort. The guy sounds like a Bond villain with a wand.”
From across the room, Fred Weasley stage-whispered, “Oi, American CSI lot—if it makes you feel better, we don’t know what the hell it is either.”
George chimed in, “But it’s probably cursed. Or glows. Or whispers ominous things when touched.”
Calleigh just muttered, “So… like my ex.”
Horatio slowly removed his sunglasses.
“Whatever it is,” he said gravely, “it’s not going to be found in a standard ballistics lab.”
Tonks blinked at the group. “You lot done trying to analyse this like it’s an episode of Law & Order: Magical Victims Unit?”
Eric raised an eyebrow. “You say that like it wouldn’t get stellar ratings.”
Tonks snorted. “Moving on, then.”
I’m the weapon, Harry thought, and it was as though poison were pumping through his veins, chilling him, bringing him out in a sweat as he swayed with the train through the dark tunnel. I’m the one Voldemort’s trying to use, that’s why they’ve got guards around me everywhere I go, it’s not for my protection, it’s for other people’s, only it’s not working, they can’t have someone on me all the time at Hogwarts … I did attack Mr Weasley last night, it was me. Voldemort made me do it and he could be inside me, listening to my thoughts right now –
‘Are you all right, Harry, dear?’ whispered Mrs Weasley, leaning across Ginny to speak to him as the train rattled along through its dark tunnel. ‘You don’t look very well. Are you feeling sick?’
They were all watching him. He shook his head violently and stared up at an advertisement for home insurance.
‘Harry, dear, are you sure you’re all right?’ said Mrs Weasley in a worried
There was a hush across the Great Hall, heavy and uncomfortable.
“Harry,” Molly said gently from her seat, voice thick with emotion, “why didn’t you say something? You poor boy—how long were you carrying that?”
Harry shrugged without lifting his head. “Didn’t seem like the kind of thing you bring up over dinner, Mrs Weasley.”
Sirius frowned, brows furrowed with frustration. “You’ve got to talk to us, Harry. You can’t just keep burying this stuff until it eats you alive.”
Remus nodded beside him. “He’s right. It’s not weakness to admit you’re struggling. Merlin knows, we all have been. But you’re not meant to go through this alone.”
Harry gave a weak sort of smile and a non-committal, “I’m fine now.”
“You are not,” came Hermione’s voice, sharp as a whip. She had half-risen from her seat, brown eyes narrowed. “That’s the worst lie I’ve ever heard from you, and that includes when you said you accidentally brought a dragon to school.”
Daphne, sitting beside him, looked over and said more quietly but no less firmly, “You’re allowed to say it’s too much, Harry. You’re allowed to not be fine.”
Harry glanced at her, clearly caught between brushing it off and maybe—just maybe—listening.
“Honestly,” Hermione muttered, settling back down, “you’ve got the emotional openness of a flobberworm.”
“He’s a teenage boy,” Daphne murmured dryly. “What do you expect, depth?”
Sirius rubbed a hand over his face. “Just promise me, kid—next time it feels like this? You tell us. Even if it’s just to say you’re scared. You don’t have to carry it all on your own.”
Harry gave another shrug, but this one was at least followed by a nod. “Alright. I’ll try.”
Molly sniffed and dabbed at her eyes with a hanky. “That’s all we ask, dear. That’s all we ask.”
From the back of the hall, Tonks muttered, “Bloody hell, and people say Christmas with my family is tense…”
She turned the page. “Right. Let’s see what emotional disaster’s next.”
voice, as they walked around the unkempt patch of grass in the middle of Grimmauld Place. ‘You look ever so pale … are you sure you slept this morning? You go upstairs to bed right now and you can have a couple of hours of sleep before dinner, all right?’
He nodded; here was a ready-made excuse not to talk to any of the others, which was precisely what he wanted, so when she opened the front door he hurried straight past the troll’s-leg umbrella stand, up the stairs and into his and Ron’s bedroom.
Here, he began to pace up and down, past the two beds and Phineas Nigellus’s empty picture frame, his brain teeming and seething with questions and ever more dreadful ideas.
How had he become a snake? Perhaps he was an Animagus … no, he couldn’t be, he would know … perhaps Voldemort was an Animagus … yes, thought Harry, that would fit, he would turn into a snake of course … and when he’s possessing me, then we both transform … that still doesn’t explain how I got to London and back to my bed in the space of about five minutes … but then Voldemort’s about the most powerful wizard in the world, apart from Dumbledore, it’s probably no problem at all to him to transport people like that.
A tense silence fell again, broken only by the faint sound of someone furiously scribbling notes (Hermione) and the faint sound of someone gnawing a quill out of nerves (Ron).
Then came the sharp, clipped voice of McGonagall.
“Albus. Enough. You should have told him.”
She didn’t raise her voice, didn’t need to—her tone had the precision of a scalpel dipped in frost.
“You’ve watched him descend into confusion, into guilt and terror, and you let him believe this—that he’s being used, transformed, possessed—and still, you said nothing.”
Dumbledore’s eyes, for once, did not twinkle.
“I believed it was not yet time—”
“You always believe it is not yet time!” McGonagall snapped. “And by the time it is, it’s already too late!”
Molly Weasley let out a breath like she’d been holding it in for weeks.
“Minerva’s right,” she said tightly. “You let my boy—all our children—sit with that fear. Harry thought he was turning into a snake, Albus. A dark creature. What must that have done to him?”
Sirius stood again, fists clenched. “He thought he was becoming Voldemort. Do you know what it does to someone to think they’re losing themselves like that? He was fifteen. He needed the truth. Not riddles and avoidance.”
“He thought it was him that hurt Arthur,” Remus added, voice soft but heavy with restrained fury. “He thought he was dangerous. To all of us.”
Dumbledore looked older than ever, but said nothing.
Tonks raised her eyebrows. “You know, I was going to make a joke about snake Animagi, but the mood is so grim I think it’d get me hexed.”
Sirius glanced at her and muttered, “Try it. I could use the distraction.”
Harry, looking deeply uncomfortable as everyone tore metaphorical strips off the Headmaster, sank slightly lower into his seat. Daphne reached out and very casually dragged him back upright by the sleeve, muttering under her breath, “Don’t sink. They’re yelling for you, not at you.”
From the staff table, Ryan Wolfe leaned toward Calleigh and whispered, “So… wait. The kid thought he literally turned into a snake?”
“Apparently,” she murmured. “Either that or he thought Voldemort puppeteered him like a weird scaly drone.”
Eric blinked. “Okay, cool, cool. Definitely never going to sleep again.”
Tonks flipped the page, muttering under her breath, “Animagi my arse. What’s next, Voldemort turning into a ferret?”
George grinned. “No, that was Malfoy.”
“Ferrets everywhere are still recovering,” Fred added solemnly.
And then, with a terrible stab of panic, he thought, but this is insane – if Voldemort’s possessing me, I’m giving him a clear view into the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix right now! He’ll know who’s in the Order and where Sirius is … and I’ve heard loads of stuff I shouldn’t have, everything Sirius told me the first night I was here …
There was only one thing for it: he would have to leave Grimmauld Place straightaway. He would spend Christmas at Hogwarts without the others, which would keep them safe over the holidays at least … but no, that wouldn’t do, there were still plenty of people at Hogwarts to maim and injure. What if it was Seamus, Dean or Neville next time? He stopped his pacing and stood staring at Phineas Nigellus’s empty frame. A leaden sensation was settling in the pit of his stomach. He had no alternative: he was going to have to return to Privet Drive, cut himself off from other wizards entirely.
From the Gryffindor table came a loud, simultaneous groan of despairing outrage.
“Oh, come on,” Ron exclaimed, flinging up his hands. “Not Privet Drive, mate! That’s your solution? That’s your big plan?”
Hermione let her head thunk against the table. “Honestly, Harry, your logic when you’re spiralling is so bad it’s almost artistic.”
Neville raised an eyebrow and muttered, “He really thought exile was the answer. Exile.”
Harry looked deeply affronted. “It made sense at the time!”
“To who?” Ron asked incredulously. “A concussed Hippogriff?”
“It wasn’t that irrational—”
“It was completely irrational,” Hermione snapped. “You thought isolating yourself in a house full of people who loathe you was going to fix Voldemort maybe having psychic Wi-Fi access to your brain.”
“Also,” Neville added with genuine curiosity, “how exactly were you going to explain this to the Dursleys? ‘Hello, I’m traumatised and possibly possessed, may I have a room with a view?’”
Harry scowled. “Alright, alright, I get it.”
Daphne, leaning back against the bench with arms folded, smiled sweetly. “Do you?”
Harry narrowed his eyes at her. “Don’t start—”
“Because you and I, might I remind you,” she interrupted crisply, “tried to walk from Manhattan to Washington, D.C.. On foot. Through New Jersey.”
A snort of laughter erupted from half the hall.
“Oh yeah,” Fred said. “And robbed Walmart.”
“Classy,” George added. “Truly the Bonnie and Clyde of magic.”
Harry opened his mouth, paused, then closed it again. “Fair point.”
Daphne gave him a satisfied nod. “I’m just saying, your track record with plans is... inconsistent.”
Sirius muttered, “He gets it from James.”
Remus sighed. “He gets the noble self-sacrificial streak from Lily.”
Tonks looked up from the book. “And the ‘I’ll run away alone and solve it myself’ gene from every traumatised male protagonist ever.”
Horatio, with clinical detachment, muttered, “I’ve arrested people with more coherent thinking than that plan.”
Ryan nodded. “We once had a guy fake his own death by hiding in a recycling bin. He still had a better strategy.”
Harry slumped slightly. “Right. We done?”
Daphne patted his shoulder. “Not even slightly.”
Well, if he had to do it, he thought, there was no point hanging around. Trying with all his might not to think how the Dursleys were going to react when they found him on their doorstep six months earlier than they had expected, he strode over to his trunk, slammed the lid shut and locked it, then glanced around automatically for Hedwig before remembering that she was still at Hogwarts – well, her cage would be one less thing to carry – he seized one end of his trunk and had dragged it halfway towards the door when a
snide voice said, ‘Running away, are we?’
He looked around. Phineas Nigellus had appeared on the canvas of his portrait and was leaning against the frame, watching Harry with an amused expression on his face.
‘Not running away, no,’ said Harry shortly, dragging his trunk a few more feet across the room.
‘I thought,’ said Phineas Nigellus, stroking his pointed beard, ‘that to belong in Gryffindor house you were supposed to be brave? It looks to me as though you would have been better off in my own house. We Slytherins are brave, yes, but not stupid. For instance, given the choice, we will always choose to save our own necks.’
Tonks paused and looked up. “And there he is. Hogwarts' most glorified smug cushion.”
Sirius made a face like he’d just bitten into something both mouldy and opinionated. “Oh, Phineas bloody Nigellus. Of course he showed up.”
Narcissa, arms folded, gave a delicate snort. “Even Mother couldn’t stand him, and she collected pureblood portraits like they were tax write-offs.”
Andromeda nodded in agreement. “He was the least unpopular Headmaster Hogwarts ever had—but only because he left the post before the students could arrange a formal assassination attempt.”
“Least popular portrait in Grimmauld Place, though,” Sirius said with a smirk. “Even the doxies in the curtains used to hiss at him.”
“I distinctly remember,” said Narcissa, “that if you shouted ‘Phineas, shut up!’ loud enough, half the other portraits would cheer.”
“His favourite pastime,” said Andromeda dryly, “was criticising your haircut while ignoring house-elf abuse. Really a man of the people.”
Sirius chuckled bitterly. “Even my batty old mum thought he was an arrogant prat. And this is a woman who once tried to disown me because I brought home a Muggle pen.”
Tonks let out a snort. “Wow. A portrait so annoying even Mrs Black wanted to hex it. That’s talent.”
Harry glanced sideways toward Sirius. “He’s still in the house, isn’t he?”
“Unfortunately,” Sirius replied grimly. “Hangs in the upstairs landing like a haunted meat thermometer. You’ll know he’s nearby when the temperature drops and someone starts monologuing about Slytherin superiority.”
Phineas, from his canvas in the Great Hall, rolled his eyes.
“I can hear you, you know,” he said with a sneer.
“Good,” Sirius barked. “Then you’ll know everyone still thinks you’re a monumental arse.”
Tonks gave a theatrical cough and turned the page. “Right, we all done roasting the racist wallpaper? Excellent. Onward.”
‘It’s not my own neck I’m saving,’ said Harry tersely, tugging the trunk over a patch of particularly uneven, moth-eaten carpet right in front of the door.
‘Oh, I see,’ said Phineas Nigellus, still stroking his beard, ‘this is no cowardly flight – you are being noble.’
Harry ignored him. His hand was on the doorknob when Phineas Nigellus said lazily, ‘I have a message for you from Albus Dumbledore.’
Harry spun round. ‘What is it?’
‘“Stay where you are.”’
‘I haven’t moved!’ said Harry, his hand still upon the doorknob. ‘So what’s the message?’
‘I have just given it to you, dolt,’ said Phineas Nigellus smoothly. ‘Dumbledore says, “Stay where you are.”’
‘Why?’ said Harry eagerly, dropping the end of his trunk. ‘Why does he want me to stay? What else did he say?’
‘Nothing whatsoever,’ said Phineas Nigellus, raising a thin black eyebrow as though he found Harry impertinent.
Harry’s temper rose to the surface like a snake rearing from long grass. He was exhausted, he was confused beyond measure, he had experienced terror, relief, then terror again in the last twelve hours, and still Dumbledore did not want to talk to him!
There was a sudden collective intake of breath—the kind usually heard just before someone flips a table.
McGonagall’s head swivelled toward Dumbledore with all the grace of a predator zeroing in.
“You refused to speak to him again?” she hissed, her Scottish brogue now razor-sharp. “After everything? After the vision, the attack, the mental breakdown—you still chose silence?”
Molly let out a strangled sound, like someone trying not to swear in front of a baby.
“You left him terrified and alone again, Albus!” she barked. “You gave him no reassurance, no comfort, just… ‘stay where you are’?! Like a dog!”
Sirius’s voice rang out next, low and dangerous. “He was desperate. He needed answers, not orders passed along by the least helpful sentient oil painting in history!”
Remus folded his arms tightly across his chest, jaw clenched. “You didn’t even tell him why. You left him in that house, spiralling, blaming himself—and all you could manage was three words sent through Phineas bloody Nigellus?”
Dumbledore, looking every inch the man who knew he’d cocked it, opened his mouth feebly. “I… believed it would be best for Harry to remain where he was—”
“Why didn’t you just speak to him?!” McGonagall snapped. “You’re supposed to be the most powerful wizard alive, yet somehow you’ve made basic human empathy look like advanced wandwork!”
“I thought—” Dumbledore began.
“—You thought, yes,” Sirius interrupted savagely. “And every time you think, Harry ends up crying, bleeding, or nearly possessed.”
Hermione muttered something uncharitable under her breath, while Ron looked like he was about to start flinging mashed potatoes out of sheer frustration.
From the staff table, Calleigh whispered to Eric, “Okay, is ghosting your traumatised student a normal thing here, or…?”
Eric shook his head slowly. “This is like watching someone emotionally neglect a grenade.”
Tonks snapped the book shut for a moment and pointed at Dumbledore. “Seriously, mate, even Snape talks to Harry more than you do.”
“And he hates him!” Fred called out.
“I don’t hate him,” Snape muttered darkly.
“You don’t like him,” George shot back. “And that’s being generous.”
Harry, now looking somewhere between embarrassed and guilty, mumbled, “He had his reasons.”
Sirius turned to him immediately. “You’re not the one who should be defending him, Harry.”
Dumbledore let out a long breath. “I did what I thought was best—”
“And what you thought,” McGonagall said coldly, “was cowardice masquerading as wisdom.”
Tonks opened the book again and muttered, “Right. On we go, before someone actually murders the Headmaster.”
‘So that’s it, is it?’ he said loudly. ‘“Stay where you are”? That’s all anyone could tell me after I got attacked by those Dementors, too! Just stay put while the grown-ups sort it out, Harry! We won’t bother telling you anything, though, because your tiny little brain might not be able to cope with it!’
‘You know,’ said Phineas Nigellus, even more loudly than Harry, ‘this is precisely why I loathed being a teacher! Young people are so infernally convinced that they are absolutely right about everything. Has it not occurred to you, my poor puffed-up popinjay, that there might be an excellent reason why the Headmaster of Hogwarts is not confiding every tiny detail of his plans to you? Have you never paused, while feeling hard-done-by, to note that following Dumbledore’s orders has never yet led you into harm? No. No, like all young people, you are quite sure that you alone feel and think, you alone recognise danger, you alone are the only one clever enough to realise what the Dark Lord may be planning –’
‘He is planning something to do with me, then?’ said Harry swiftly.
‘Did I say that?’ said Phineas Nigellus, idly examining his silk gloves. ‘Now, if you will excuse me, I have better things to do than listen to adolescent agonising … good-day to you.’
Tonks gave a theatrical shudder. “Ugh. He’s like a posh Dementor with a thesaurus.”
Across the room, Harry rolled his eyes. “He might be insufferable, but he definitely confirmed it. Voldemort’s plans involve me. He practically shouted it while wagging his eyebrows.”
Sirius huffed and crossed his arms. “Phineas never could keep his mouth shut. Especially when trying to look superior.”
“He always did mistake smugness for intelligence,” Andromeda added dryly.
Narcissa smirked faintly. “The only person who thought Phineas Nigellus was brilliant was Phineas Nigellus. And maybe that dreadful mirror in the upstairs hall.”
“Shame he wasn’t a better Slytherin,” Daphne remarked. “He could’ve been subtle about it, but no—he’s like a howler with a monocle.”
“I’m not saying I want to set his portrait on fire,” Hermione muttered. “I’m just saying if a candle fell into the frame accidentally, I wouldn’t cry.”
From the CSI section, Ryan raised a hand. “Okay. So the talking painting just admitted the dark wizard is up to something involving the kid—again—and still no one’s filled Harry in?”
Horatio nodded. “Yes. That’s our working theory. Emotional sabotage by sentient art.”
Tonks sighed. “And they wonder why wizarding children grow up unhinged.”
Sirius smirked and muttered, “Well, Phineas has gone now. Off to go polish his gloves and give a lecture to a potted plant.”
Harry glanced at the ceiling, tone bone-dry. “Can’t imagine why people thought I was dramatic.”
Tonks flipped the page with a flick and said, “Right. Shall we continue before Phineas comes back to insult the air?”
The empty canvas remained silent. Fuming, Harry dragged his trunk back to the foot of his bed, then threw himself face down on the moth-eaten covers, his eyes shut, his body heavy and aching.
He felt as though he had journeyed for miles and miles … it seemed impossible that less than twenty-four hours ago Cho Chang had been approaching him under the mistletoe … he was so tired … he was scared to sleep … yet he did not know how long he could fight it … Dumbledore had told him to stay … that must mean he was allowed to sleep … but he was scared … what if it happened again?
A faint, sly smirk curled across Cho Chang’s lips.
Daphne Greengrass, without turning her head, narrowed her eyes into cold violet slits and fixed Cho with a look that could peel paint.
Cho’s smile didn’t falter.
Daphne’s glare only deepened.
Neither said a word.
No one else noticed.
But the air between them crackled with silent, razor-edged loathing.
He was sinking into shadows …
It was as though a film in his head had been waiting to start. He was walking down a deserted corridor towards a plain black door, past rough stone walls, torches, and an open doorway on to a flight of stone steps leading downstairs on the left …
He reached the black door but could not open it … he stood gazing at it, desperate for entry … something he wanted with all his heart lay beyond … a prize beyond his dreams … if only his scar would stop prickling … then he would be able to think more clearly …
‘Harry,’ said Ron’s voice, from far, far away, ‘Mum says dinner’s ready, but she’ll save you something if you want to stay in bed.’
Harry opened his eyes, but Ron had already left the room.
He doesn’t want to be on his own with me, Harry thought. Not after what he heard Moody say.
He supposed none of them would want him there any more, now that they knew what was inside him.
He would not go down to dinner; he would not inflict his company on them. He turned over on to his other side and, after a while, dropped back off to sleep. He woke much later, in the early hours of the morning, his insides aching with hunger and Ron snoring in the next bed. Squinting around the room, he saw the dark outline of Phineas Nigellus standing again in his portrait and it occurred to Harry that Dumbledore had probably sent Phineas Nigellus to watch over him, in case he attacked somebody else.
There was a pause, the air thick with mounting tension.
Molly’s chair scraped back an inch as she stood, voice rising. “He thought you put someone there to watch him because he might hurt someone?! Albus, are you hearing this? He’s a boy, not a ticking time bomb!”
McGonagall stood too, her expression thunderous. “You allowed him to sit in that room—exhausted, terrified, starving—and never once reassured him that he wasn’t some dangerous creature?! He believed he had to isolate himself for everyone else’s safety!”
Sirius was already on his feet, face flushed with rage. “You sent Phineas to spy on him like he was a threat! Not a student. Not a godson. A threat! Do you even hear yourself?!”
Dumbledore didn’t answer at first. His hands folded neatly in front of him, gaze focused somewhere just beyond the present.
“I did not intend—”
“Oh, stop saying that!” Molly snapped. “You always didn’t intend. Well, intent doesn’t matter much when a fifteen-year-old thinks he’s better off not being around people in case he attacks them, does it?”
McGonagall nodded sharply. “Exactly. You gave him no context, no guidance—just silence, suspicion, and surveillance!”
“He needed reassurance,” Sirius said coldly. “And what did you give him? A portrait with a superiority complex and a personality like sour vinegar.”
Dumbledore finally looked up, his voice quiet. “I feared what he might do if he knew the full truth.”
“Well, congratulations,” McGonagall hissed. “Now he fears himself.”
Tonks closed the book briefly and looked between them all. “Anyone want to put odds on how long we’ll get into the next chapter before the adults riot again?”
Fred leaned over to George and whispered, “Five galleons says Mum throws a spoon next time.”
George nodded. “Make it ten if it’s the gravy ladle.”
The feeling of being unclean intensified. He half-wished he had not obeyed Dumbledore … if this was how life was going to be for him in Grimmauld Place from now on, maybe he would be better off in Privet Drive after all.
Everybody else spent the following morning putting up Christmas decorations. Harry could not remember Sirius ever being in such a good mood; he was actually singing carols, apparently delighted that he was to have company over Christmas. Harry could hear his voice echoing up through the floor in the cold drawing room where he was sitting alone, watching the sky growing whiter outside the windows, threatening snow, all the time feeling a savage pleasure that he was giving the others the opportunity to keep talking about him, as they were bound to be doing. When he heard Mrs Weasley calling his name softly up the stairs around lunchtime, he retreated further upstairs and ignored her.
Around six o’clock in the evening the doorbell rang and Mrs Black started screaming again. Assuming that Mundungus or some other Order member had come to call, Harry merely settled himself more comfortably against the wall of Buckbeak’s room where he was hiding, trying to ignore how hungry he felt as he fed dead rats to the Hippogriff. It came as a slight shock when somebody hammered hard on the door a few minutes later.
‘I know you’re in there,’ said Hermione’s voice. ‘Will you please come out? I want to talk to you.’
‘What are you doing here?’ Harry asked her, pulling open the door as Buckbeak resumed his scratching at the straw-strewn floor for any fragments of rat he may have dropped. ‘I thought you were skiing with your mum and dad?’
‘Well, to tell the truth, skiing’s not really my thing,’ said Hermione. ‘So,
"I thought you told us you were an expert last year," Ron said, looking at her suspiciously.
Hermione sniffed. "That was theoretical knowledge. In practice, I discovered snow hates me."
Fred leaned back in his seat, grinning. "Did the skis bite you?"
"Or was it the snowman uprising?" George added. "We’ve always suspected a revolution in the Alps."
Ginny rolled her eyes. "She fell off the ski lift before she even got on it."
Hermione folded her arms. "Twice. And thank you, Ginny, for preserving that memory forever."
Fred looked smug. "We're just saying, next time, stick to books. They don’t move downhill at thirty miles an hour."
"Unless it’s a cursed textbook," George said. "Remember that one in second year? Bit Lee on the nose."
"Still more pleasant than skiing," Hermione muttered darkly.
I’ve come here for Christmas.’ There was snow in her hair and her face was pink with cold. ‘But don’t tell Ron. I told him skiing’s really good because he kept laughing so much. Mum and Dad are a bit disappointed, but I’ve told them that everyone who is serious about the exams is staying at Hogwarts to study. They want me to do well, they’ll understand. Anyway,’ she said briskly, ‘let’s go to your bedroom, Ron’s mum has lit a fire in there and she’s sent up sandwiches.’
Molly gave a fond sigh as she folded her hands in her lap.
"Well," she said softly, mostly to herself, "it was nice having everyone in place that Christmas. Just for a while."
Harry followed her back to the second floor. When he entered the bedroom, he was rather surprised to see both Ron and Ginny waiting for them, sitting on Ron’s bed.
‘I came on the Knight Bus,’ said Hermione airily, pulling off her jacket before Harry had time to speak. ‘Dumbledore told me what had happened yesterday morning, but I had to wait for term to end officially before setting off. Umbridge is already livid that you lot disappeared right under her nose, even though Dumbledore told her Mr Weasley was in St Mungo’s and he’d given you all permission to visit. So …’
Fred leaned forward on the Gryffindor table, his grin already up to no good.
“So, Hermione,” he said, with mock solemnity, “how was the Knight Bus? Lose any internal organs? Or did it just rearrange your bones this time?”
George snorted. “I once watched a bloke board with a full tea set. Got off with a sugar cube in one hand and PTSD in the other.”
Hermione, still sat neatly between Ginny and Neville, grimaced.
“Let’s just say it’s not my favourite way to travel,” she muttered, rubbing her temples. “The stop before mine was Inverness. The driver decided we should see how fast the bus could go downhill. Sideways.”
Fred looked thrilled. “Brilliant.”
“You say that,” Hermione said darkly, “but I nearly ended up in the luggage rack. Again.”
She sat down next to Ginny, and the two girls and Ron all looked up at Harry.
‘How’re you feeling?’ asked Hermione. ‘Fine,’ said Harry stiffly.
‘Oh, don’t lie, Harry,’ she said impatiently. ‘Ron and Ginny say you’ve been hiding from everyone since you got back from St Mungo’s.’
‘They do, do they?’ said Harry, glaring at Ron and Ginny. Ron looked down at his feet but Ginny seemed quite unabashed.
‘Well, you have!’ she said. ‘And you won’t look at any of us!’ ‘It’s you lot who won’t look at me!’ said Harry angrily.
Ron gave an awkward shrug, eyes darting between Harry and the table like he was trying to pick which was more uncomfortable to look at.
“We weren’t avoiding you, mate,” he muttered. “Just… didn’t know what to say. I mean, you looked like you were ready to bite someone’s head off.”
Ginny, however, looked completely unrepentant.
“Oh please, don’t start glaring at me like I kicked your owl,” she said sharply. “You’ve been brooding like a Victorian heroine with a tragic backstory. What were we supposed to do—throw a parade?”
Harry folded his arms and gave them both a look of stony disbelief.
“Forgive me for not bouncing back after seeing through the eyes of a homicidal snake. Maybe next time I’ll throw myself a party.”
“Don’t tempt me,” Ginny muttered.
Ron winced and muttered something about sandwiches being a safer topic.
‘Maybe you’re taking it in turns to look, and keep missing each other,’ suggested Hermione, the corners of her mouth twitching.
‘Very funny,’ snapped Harry, turning away.
‘Oh, stop feeling all misunderstood,’ said Hermione sharply. ‘Look, the others have told me what you overheard last night on the Extendable Ears –’
‘Yeah?’ growled Harry, his hands deep in his pockets as he watched the snow now falling thickly outside. ‘All been talking about me, have you? Well, I’m getting used to it.’
‘We wanted to talk to you, Harry,’ said Ginny, ‘but as you’ve been hiding ever since we got back –’
‘I didn’t want anyone to talk to me,’ said Harry, who was feeling more and
more nettled.
‘Well, that was a bit stupid of you,’ said Ginny angrily, ‘seeing as you don’t know anyone but me who’s been possessed by You-Know-Who, and I can tell you how it feels.’
Harry remained quite still as the impact of these words hit him. Then he turned on the spot to face her.
‘I forgot,’ he said.
‘Lucky you,’ said Ginny coolly.
Harry rubbed the back of his neck, the tension in his shoulders finally easing just a little.
“Sorry,” he muttered, eyes flicking toward Ginny with genuine regret. “I forgot.”
Ginny gave him a small smile, brushing it off with a casual, “It’s okay.” But the way she smiled—warm, a little cheeky—lingered a moment too long.
Daphne, seated right next to Harry, saw it. Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly, lips pressing together just briefly. She didn’t say a word—but her hand, which had been resting loosely on her lap, curled faintly into a fist.
Harry, as usual, was completely oblivious.
‘I’m sorry,’ Harry said, and he meant it. ‘So … so, do you think I’m being possessed, then?’
‘Well, can you remember everything you’ve been doing?’ Ginny asked. ‘Are there big blank periods where you don’t know what you’ve been up to?’
Harry racked his brains. ‘No,’ he said.
‘Then You-Know-Who hasn’t ever possessed you,’ said Ginny simply. ‘When he did it to me, I couldn’t remember what I’d been doing for hours at a time. I’d find myself somewhere and not know how I got there.’
Colin Creevy leaned forward slightly, his expression unusually serious.
“Ginny,” he asked hesitantly, “is that really what it was like? You just… lost time?”
Ginny nodded, her smile gone now. “Yeah,” she said grimly. “You don’t just feel weird or off. It’s like being a puppet. You wake up and realise you’ve done things—and you’ve got no memory of them at all.”
A few of the younger students nearby looked visibly unsettled.
Colin sat back, clearly disturbed, and glanced toward Harry with a newfound sympathy.
Harry hardly dared believe her, yet his heart was lightening almost in spite of himself.
‘That dream I had about your dad and the snake, though –’
‘Harry, you’ve had these dreams before,’ Hermione said. ‘You had flashes of what Voldemort was up to last year.’
‘This was different,’ said Harry, shaking his head. ‘I was inside that snake. It was like I was the snake … what if Voldemort somehow transported me to London –?’
‘One day,’ said Hermione, sounding thoroughly exasperated, ‘you’ll read Hogwarts: A History, and perhaps it will remind you that you can’t Apparate or Disapparate inside Hogwarts. Even Voldemort couldn’t just make you fly out of your dormitory, Harry.’
‘You didn’t leave your bed, mate,’ said Ron. ‘I saw you thrashing around in your sleep for at least a minute before we could wake you up.’
Harry started pacing up and down the room again, thinking. What they were all saying was not only comforting, it made sense … without really thinking, he took a sandwich from the plate on the bed and crammed it hungrily into his mouth.
I’m not the weapon after all, thought Harry. His heart swelled with happiness and relief, and he felt like joining in as they heard Sirius tramping past their door towards Buckbeak’s room, singing ‘God Rest Ye, Merry Hippogriffs’ at the top of his voice.
Remus raised an eyebrow in that quiet, judgmental way that only he had perfected over years of friendship.
“How much have you had to drink?” he asked dryly, watching Sirius with obvious amusement.
Sirius gave an unapologetic shrug, a lopsided grin tugging at his mouth. “One. Or four. Depends if you count the one I spilled on Buckbeak.”
From across the table, Fred and George looked positively inspired.
How could he have dreamed of returning to Privet Drive for Christmas? Sirius’s delight at having the house full again, and especially at having Harry back, was infectious. He was no longer their sullen host of the summer; now he seemed determined that everyone should enjoy themselves as much, if not more than they would have done at Hogwarts, and he worked tirelessly in the run-up to Christmas Day, cleaning and decorating with their help, so that by the time they all went to bed on Christmas Eve the house was barely recognisable. The tarnished chandeliers were no longer hung with cobwebs but with garlands of holly and gold and silver streamers; magical snow glittered in heaps over the threadbare carpets; a great Christmas tree, obtained by Mundungus and decorated with live fairies, blocked Sirius’s family tree from view, and even the stuffed elf-heads on the hall wall wore Father Christmas hats and beards.
Harry awoke on Christmas morning to find a stack of presents at the foot of his bed and Ron already halfway through opening his own, rather larger, pile.
‘Good haul this year,’ he informed Harry through a cloud of paper. ‘Thanks for the Broom Compass, it’s excellent; beats Hermione’s – she got me a homework planner –’
Hermione rolled her eyes with the air of someone who had been here far too many times before.
“Yes, well, maybe if Ron used the homework planner, I wouldn’t have to spend every week rescuing him from academic disaster.”
Professor McGonagall, from her seat at the staff table, gave a regal nod. “Miss Granger is quite correct. Frankly, I’m tempted to start issuing those planners as mandatory equipment. Along with earplugs—for my own benefit.”
Ron, for his part, looked utterly betrayed.
Harry sorted through his presents and found one with Hermione’s handwriting on it. She had given him, too, a book that resembled a diary except that every time he opened a page it said aloud things like: ‘Do it today or later you’ll pay!’
Sirius and Lupin had given Harry a set of excellent books entitled Practical Defensive Magic and its Use Against the Dark Arts, which had superb, moving colour illustrations of all the counter-jinxes and hexes it described. Harry flicked through the first volume eagerly; he could see it was going to be highly useful in his plans for the DA. Hagrid had sent a furry brown wallet that had fangs, which were presumably supposed to be an anti-theft device, but unfortunately prevented Harry putting any money in without getting his fingers ripped off. Tonks’s present was a small, working model of a Firebolt, which Harry watched fly around the room, wishing he still had his full-size version; Ron had given him an enormous box of Every-Flavour Beans, Mr and Mrs Weasley the usual hand-knitted jumper and some mince pies, and Dobby a truly dreadful painting that Harry suspected had been done by the elf himself. He had just turned it upside-down to see whether it looked better that way when, with a loud crack, Fred and George Apparated at the foot of his
Harry, from his place at the Gryffindor table, flashes a grateful smile toward Sirius and Remus.
“Thanks,” he says simply. “That book set was brilliant.”
Sirius grins, leaning back with mock pride. “Knew you’d like it. That wallet from Hagrid though—deadly little bastard, wasn’t it?”
Tonks, smirking, lifts her hands. “The mini Firebolt was my idea. Credit where it’s due.”
Ron, already three mince pies in, waves a bean-stained hand. “Mum says the jumpers are charmed this year. Warm no matter how wet they get.”
Hermione groans. “She’s been trying to enchant mine for ages.”
McGonagall, sipping her tea, murmurs approvingly. “Quite practical, that woman.”
Dobby, further down the hall, beams proudly when his painting is mentioned. “Harry Potter is too kind to keep it,” he whispers to himself, clutching a second, even worse painting.
bed.
‘Merry Christmas,’ said George. ‘Don’t go downstairs for a bit.’ ‘Why not?’ said Ron.
‘Mum’s crying again,’ said Fred heavily. ‘Percy sent back his Christmas jumper.’
‘Without a note,’ added George. ‘Hasn’t asked how Dad is or visited him or anything.’
‘We tried to comfort her,’ said Fred, moving around the bed to look at Harry’s portrait. ‘Told her Percy’s nothing more than a humungous pile of rat droppings.’
‘Didn’t work,’ said George, helping himself to a Chocolate Frog. ‘So Lupin took over. Best let him cheer her up before we go down for breakfast, I reckon.’
‘What’s that supposed to be, anyway?’ asked Fred, squinting at Dobby’s painting. ‘Looks like a gibbon with two black eyes.’
‘It’s Harry!’ said George, pointing at the back of the picture, ‘says so on the back!’
‘Good likeness,’ said Fred, grinning. Harry threw his new homework diary at him; it hit the wall opposite and fell to the floor where it said happily: ‘If you’ve dotted the “i”s and crossed the “t”s then you may do whatever you please!’
They got up and dressed. They could hear the various inhabitants of the house calling ‘Merry Christmas’ to one another. On their way downstairs they met Hermione.
‘Thanks for the book, Harry,’ she said happily. ‘I’ve been wanting that New Theory of Numerology for ages! And that perfume’s really unusual, Ron.’
‘No problem,’ said Ron. ‘Who’s that for, anyway?’ he added, nodding at the neatly wrapped present she was carrying.
‘Kreacher,’ said Hermione brightly.
‘It had better not be clothes!’ Ron warned her. ‘You know what Sirius said: Kreacher knows too much, we can’t set him free!’
‘It isn’t clothes,’ said Hermione, ‘although if I had my way I’d certainly give him something to wear other than that filthy old rag. No, it’s a patchwork quilt, I thought it would brighten up his bedroom.
“Very thoughtful,” Amelia said, gentle as tea steam. “A quilt is kindness without strings, Miss Granger.”
“It’s not just kindness,” Hermione said, squaring up. “It’s S-P-E-W. Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare. House-elves do unpaid labour under magical compulsion and everyone acts like it’s charming. It isn’t.”
Horatio Caine blinked once. “House… elf?”
Calleigh tilted her head at the word. “Is that a job title or a species?”
Ryan Wolfe frowned. “So he’s staff? Or… owned? Because those are very different forms.”
Eric Delko glanced at the doors that shouldn’t float. “And he lives… in a cupboard?”
Hermione’s voice warmed and sharpened all at once. “He’s a sentient magical being bound to a family. They can only be freed if they’re given clothes. Most won’t take them because generations of ‘service’ have taught them that freedom is shameful. It’s wrong. It’s cruel. And we should stop pretending it’s quaint.”
Wolfe opened his notebook halfway, then remembered where he was and shut it again. “I’m trying to map the ethics here and the paper keeps catching fire.”
Caine kept his tone level. “Understood. Noted. Still missing several steps between ‘quilt’ and ‘compulsion.’”
Calleigh’s smile was careful. “We’re not mocking. We just… don’t have a box to put that in yet.”
Amelia’s eyes were kind. “That’s quite all right. Different worlds.” She glanced to the staff table, then back. “We will walk you through it properly later.”
‘What bedroom?’ said Harry, dropping his voice to a whisper as they were passing the portrait of Sirius’s mother.
‘Well, Sirius says it’s not so much a bedroom, more a kind of – den,’ said
Hermione. ‘Apparently he sleeps under the boiler in that cupboard off the kitchen.’
Mrs Weasley was the only person in the basement when they arrived there. She was standing at the stove and sounded as though she had a bad head cold as she wished them ‘Merry Christmas’, and they all averted their eyes.
‘So, is this Kreacher’s bedroom?’ said Ron, strolling over to a dingy door in the corner opposite the pantry. Harry had never seen it open.
‘Yes,’ said Hermione, now sounding a little nervous. ‘Er … I think we’d better knock.’
Ron rapped on the door with his knuckles but there was no reply.
‘He must be sneaking around upstairs,’ he said, and without further ado pulled open the door. ‘Urgh!’
“Sodding little troll lives like a rat and acts worse,” Sirius muttered. “Boiler cupboard suits him.”
“He’s not disgusting, he’s neglected,” Hermione said, steady but tight. “Treat someone like vermin long enough and they’ll act like it. That’s on us.”
“Oh, come off it, Hermione,” Ron said. “He calls you names and hides knives in the soup. Sirius is right—he’s vile.”
“Dangerous when he thinks no one’s looking,” Sirius added, jaw set.
“Traumatised and enslaved,” Hermione shot back, softer but firmer. “That doesn’t excuse it, but it explains it.”
“Brilliant,” Tonks said brightly. “Before we turn Christmas into a tribunal, I’m cracking on.” She cleared her throat. “Right—next bit.”
Harry peered inside. Most of the cupboard was taken up with a very large and old-fashioned boiler, but in the foot of space underneath the pipes Kreacher had made himself something that looked like a nest. A jumble of assorted rags and smelly old blankets were piled on the floor and the small dent in the middle of it showed where Kreacher curled up to sleep every night. Here and there among the material were stale bread crusts and mouldy old bits of cheese. In a far corner glinted small objects and coins that Harry guessed Kreacher had saved, magpie-like, from Sirius’s purge of the house, and he had also managed to retrieve the silver-framed family photographs that Sirius had thrown away over the summer. Their glass might be shattered, but still the little black-and-white people inside them peered up at him haughtily, including – he felt a little jolt in his stomach – the dark, heavy-lidded woman whose trial he had witnessed in Dumbledore’s Pensieve: Bellatrix Lestrange. By the looks of it, hers was Kreacher’s favourite photograph; he had placed it to the fore of all the others and had mended the glass clumsily with Spellotape.
“Under a boiler. Mum would be thrilled. And Bella front and centre… of course he’d keep her,” Sirius said, shaking his head.
“He sleeps under active piping?” Horatio Caine asked, flat.
“That’s heat stress, fumes, zero ventilation,” Calleigh said. “It’s a miracle he’s alive.”
“Food scraps, hoarded coins, broken glass mended with… tape,” Ryan Wolfe said. “That’s bunker behaviour under pressure.”
“And the photos are still moving,” Eric Delko said, eyes wide. “Right. Totally normal. Great.”
“It proves he’s been treated like—” Hermione began, chin lifting.
“And on that cheery note, next page!” Tonks said brightly, flipping ahead.
‘I think I’ll just leave his present here,’ said Hermione, laying the package neatly in the middle of the depression in the rags and blankets and closing the door quietly. ‘He’ll find it later, that’ll be fine.’
‘Come to think of it,’ said Sirius, emerging from the pantry carrying a large turkey as they closed the cupboard door, ‘has anyone actually seen Kreacher lately?’
‘I haven’t seen him since the night we came back here,’ said Harry. ‘You were ordering him out of the kitchen.’
‘Yeah …’ said Sirius, frowning. ‘You know, I think that’s the last time I saw him, too … he must be hiding upstairs somewhere.’
‘He couldn’t have left, could he?’ said Harry. ‘I mean, when you said
“out”, maybe he thought you meant get out of the house?’
‘No, no, house-elves can’t leave unless they’re given clothes. They’re tied to their family’s house,’ said Sirius.
“Hmm,” Dumbledore said softly.
“Tied to the house?” Horatio Caine said. “As in… cannot leave.”
“That sounds like slavery,” Calleigh said, not unkindly, just blunt.
“Clothes as a key?” Ryan Wolfe said. “That’s… specific.”
“So if nobody’s seen him, he’s still in here somewhere,” Eric Delko said. “That’s comforting.”
“Mugg—” Umbridge began, voice sour.
“Dolores,” Fudge said, without looking at her.
“We’ll answer all your questions properly later,” Amelia said to the CSIs, calm and warm. “You have my word.”
‘They can leave the house if they really want to,’ Harry contradicted him. ‘Dobby did, he left the Malfoys’ to give me warnings three years ago. He had to punish himself afterwards, but he still managed it.’
Sirius looked slightly disconcerted for a moment, then said, ‘I’ll look for him later, I expect I’ll find him upstairs crying his eyes out over my mother’s old bloomers or something. Of course, he might have crawled into the airing cupboard and died … but I mustn’t get my hopes up.’
Fred, George and Ron laughed; Hermione, however, looked reproachful.
Once they had eaten their Christmas lunch, the Weasleys, Harry and
Hermione were planning to pay Mr Weasley another visit, escorted by Mad-Eye and Lupin. Mundungus turned up in time for Christmas pudding and trifle, having managed to ‘borrow’ a car for the occasion, as the Underground did not run on Christmas Day. The car, which Harry doubted very much had been taken with the consent of its owner,
“Owner didn’t mind at all,” Mad-Eye said with a smile.
“Honestly, Alastor. Remus.” Molly’s look did the rest.
“Sorry, Molly,” Lupin said mildly. “It was that or a very long walk.”
“Was it at least a convertible?” Fred asked.
“Convertible to evidence,” George said.
“Season of giving,” Lee added. “He gave it legs.”
“This is a flagrant—” Umbridge began, scandal ripening.
“Dolores,” Fudge hissed. “Not one more word. You’re in enough trouble over quills.”
had been enlarged with a spell like the Weasleys’ old Ford Anglia had once been. Although normally proportioned outside, ten people with Mundungus driving were able to fit into it quite comfortably. Mrs Weasley hesitated before getting inside – Harry knew her disapproval of Mundungus was battling with her dislike of travelling without magic – but, finally, the cold outside and her children’s pleading triumphed, and she settled herself into the back seat between Fred and Bill with good grace.
The journey to St Mungo’s was quite quick as there was very little traffic on the roads. A small trickle of witches and wizards was creeping furtively up the otherwise deserted street to visit the hospital. Harry and the others got out of the car, and Mundungus drove off around the corner to wait for them. They strolled casually towards the window where the dummy in green nylon stood, then, one by one, stepped through the glass.
The reception area looked pleasantly festive: the crystal orbs that illuminated St Mungo’s had been coloured red and gold to become gigantic, glowing Christmas baubles; holly hung around every doorway; and shining white Christmas trees covered in magical snow and icicles glittered in every corner, each one topped with a gleaming gold star. It was less crowded than the last time they had been there, although halfway across the room Harry found himself shunted aside by a witch with a satsuma jammed up her left nostril.
The reception area looked pleasantly festive: the crystal orbs that illuminated St Mungo’s had been coloured red and gold to become gigantic, glowing Christmas baubles; holly hung around every doorway; and shining white Christmas trees covered in magical snow and icicles glittered in every corner, each one topped with a gleaming gold star. It was less crowded than the last time they had been there, although halfway across the room Harry found himself shunted aside by a witch with a satsuma jammed up her left nostril.
‘Family argument, eh?’ smirked the blonde witch behind the desk. ‘You’re the third I’ve seen today … Spell Damage, fourth floor.’
“Is that a citrus-related medical emergency?” Eric Delko said.
“This ER looks like a Christmas card… and the snow isn’t melting,” Calleigh Duquesne said.
“Spell Damage. Fourth floor. Noted,” Horatio Caine said.
“Do you actually chart that as ‘satsuma, left nostril’?” Ryan Wolfe said.
“That’s one way to get your five-a-day,” Lee Jordan said.
“Orange you glad it’s not a grapefruit?” Fred Weasley said.
“Call it an orange alert,” George Weasley said.
“She heard ‘zest’ and thought ‘nest,’” Lee Jordan said.
“Careful—it's snot a laughing matter,” Fred Weasley said.
“Peel and heal, then up to Spell Damage. Fourth floor,” George Weasley said.
They found Mr Weasley propped up in bed with the remains of his turkey dinner on a tray on his lap and a rather sheepish expression on his face.
‘Everything all right, Arthur?’ asked Mrs Weasley, after they had all greeted Mr Weasley and handed over their presents.
‘Fine, fine,’ said Mr Weasley, a little too heartily. ‘You – er – haven’t seen Healer Smethwyck, have you?’
‘No,’ said Mrs Weasley suspiciously, ‘why?’
‘Nothing, nothing,’ said Mr Weasley airily, starting to unwrap his pile of gifts. ‘Well, everyone had a good day? What did you all get for Christmas? Oh, Harry – this is absolutely wonderful!’ For he had just opened Harry’s gift of fuse-wire and screwdrivers
“Was the food actually any good back then, Mr Weasley, or just hospital-tray brave? I’m hoping you got more hit than miss,” Calleigh Duquesne said.
“Surprisingly decent, thank you—proper gravy and roasties; better than most Ministry buffets,” Arthur Weasley said.
“In Muggle hospitals the tray usually looks like it lost a bet—lukewarm mystery meat, overcooked peas, neon Jell-O,” Eric Delko said. “If yours tasted like food, you were ahead of the curve.”
“When you’ve got a minute later, I’ll show you how to use the fuse-wire and the screwdrivers,” Horatio Caine said. “We’ll start with a plug and work up to a lamp—safe, simple, no blown circuits.”
“Yes please—plugs are those marvellous three-pronged connectors, aren’t they? Best Christmas since rubber ducks,” Arthur Weasley said.
“Lessons later, boys—no tinkering at the table,” Molly Weasley said, chuckling.
Mrs Weasley did not seem entirely satisfied with Mr Weasley’s answer. As her husband leaned over to shake Harry’s hand, she peered at the bandaging under his nightshirt.
‘Arthur,’ she said, with a snap in her voice like a mousetrap, ‘you’ve had your bandages changed. Why have you had your bandages changed a day early, Arthur? They told me they wouldn’t need doing until tomorrow.’
‘What?’ said Mr Weasley, looking rather frightened and pulling the bed covers higher up his chest. ‘No, no – it’s nothing – it’s – I –’
He seemed to deflate under Mrs Weasley’s piercing gaze.
‘Well – now don’t get upset, Molly, but Augustus Pye had an idea … he’s the Trainee Healer, you know, lovely young chap and very interested in … um
… complementary medicine … I mean, some of these old Muggle remedies
… well, they’re called stitches, Molly, and they work very well on – on Muggle wounds –’
“Dad, did you really think you’d get away with hiding that?” Fred Weasley said.
“From a family that inventories bruises for sport, no less,” George Weasley said.
“Stitches,” Madam Pomfrey said. “A barbaric Muggle practice—threading skin like a hem.”
“They do work,” Calleigh Duquesne said. “You bring the wound edges together, cleanly, under antiseptic, then let the body knit; it reduces infection and scarring.”
“On paper,” Madam Pomfrey said. “What of evidence beyond folklore?”
“Randomised trials, decades of surgical standards, millions of cases,” Calleigh Duquesne said. “They’re for lacerations, not puncture poisons. For snakebites you stabilise, antivenom, debridement; you close later, carefully.”
“Precisely,” Madam Pomfrey said. “Not on a wizard freshly envenomed by an augmented serpent, and not by a trainee showing off. No more amateur surgery.”
“Translation: caught red-handed with thread,” Fred Weasley said.
“And not the knitting kind,” George Weasley said.
Mrs Weasley let out an ominous noise somewhere between a shriek and a snarl. Lupin strolled away from the bed and over to the werewolf, who had no visitors and was looking rather wistfully at the crowd around Mr Weasley; Bill muttered something about getting himself a cup of tea and Fred and George leapt up to accompany him, grinning.
‘Do you mean to tell me,’ said Mrs Weasley, her voice growing louder with every word and apparently unaware that her fellow visitors were scurrying for cover, ‘that you have been messing about with Muggle remedies?’
‘Not messing about, Molly, dear,’ said Mr Weasley imploringly, ‘it was just – just something Pye and I thought we’d try – only, most unfortunately – well, with these particular kinds of wounds – it doesn’t seem to work as well as
we’d hoped –’
‘Meaning?’
“Did she just say werewolf?” Eric Delko said.
“As in lycanthrope—bite-transmitted?” Calleigh Duquesne said.
“Is he a risk right now or only at the full moon?” Horatio Caine said.
“Are there protocols—restraints, meds, anything?” Ryan Wolfe said.
“I’ll explain later,” Remus Lupin said. “Short answer: not at the moment, and there is a potion that helps.”
‘Well … well, I don’t know whether you know what – what stitches are?’ ‘It sounds as though you’ve been trying to sew your skin back together,’
said Mrs Weasley with a snort of mirthless laughter, ‘but even you, Arthur,
wouldn’t be that stupid –’
‘I fancy a cup of tea, too,’ said Harry, jumping to his feet.
Hermione, Ron and Ginny almost sprinted to the door with him. As it swung closed behind them, they heard Mrs Weasley shriek, ‘WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THAT’S THE GENERAL IDEA?’
“Dad’s in the deep end now,” Fred quipped.
“Break out the floaties—Mum’s about to make waves,” George murmured.
“New Weasleys’ Wizard Wheeze: Anti-Howler Earplugs,” Fred stage-whispered.
“Field test them on Dad, if he survives the demo,” George deadpanned.
“Top tip, Father: when Mum says ‘Meaning?,’ the correct answer is ‘I’m sorry,’” Fred advised.
“And the second correct answer is ‘I’ll never do it again,’” George added.
‘I fancy a cup of tea, too,’ said Harry, jumping to his feet.
Hermione, Ron and Ginny almost sprinted to the door with him. As it swung closed behind them, they heard Mrs Weasley shriek, ‘WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THAT’S THE GENERAL IDEA?’
“Going for tea had been inspired,” Fred said, leaning back with a grin.
“Best call of the day,” George said, tapping his goblet. “We knew better than to hang about once Mum hit ‘Meaning?’”
“We absolutely did,” Hermione said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Staying would’ve been… unwise.”
“I wasn’t volunteering as collateral damage,” Ron said, pulling a face.
“My ears would never have forgiven me,” Ginny said with a snort.
“Yeah,” Harry said, rubbing his neck. “We got out while we could.”
‘Typical Dad,’ said Ginny, shaking her head as they set off up the corridor. ‘Stitches … I ask you …’
‘Well, you know, they do work well on non-magical wounds,’ said Hermione fairly. ‘I suppose something in that snake’s venom dissolves them or something. I wonder where the tearoom is?’
“Stitches are pretty basic,” Calleigh said. “Doctors sew a cut closed so it heals clean.”
“They’re standard,” Horatio said. “Right wound, right hands—they work.”
“I’m not persuaded,” Madam Pomfrey said. “Cursed or envenomed wounds aren’t ordinary cuts. Threading skin like a hem might suit Muggles; with that venom, it shouldn’t have been done.”
‘Fifth floor,’ said Harry, remembering the sign over the welcomewitch’s desk.
They walked along the corridor, through a set of double doors and found a rickety staircase lined with more portraits of brutal-looking Healers. As they climbed it, the various Healers called out to them, diagnosing odd complaints and suggesting horrible remedies. Ron was seriously affronted when a medieval wizard called out that he clearly had a bad case of spattergroit.
‘And what’s that supposed to be?’ he asked angrily, as the Healer pursued him through six more portraits, shoving the occupants out of the way.
“Spattergroit?” Horatio said. “Is that contagious?”
“Sounds like a skin thing,” Calleigh said. “Quarantine-level, or just grim?”
“If that walked into an ER, we’d be masking up,” Ryan said. “How worried should we be?”
“Not very,” Amelia said, chuckling. “Uncomfortable and unsightly, yes; life-threatening, no. Healers handle it—and portraits do love to be dramatic.”
‘’Tis a most grievous affliction of the skin, young master, that will leave you pockmarked and more gruesome even than you are now –’
‘Watch who you’re calling gruesome!’ said Ron, his ears turning red.
‘– the only remedy is to take the liver of a toad, bind it tight about your throat, stand naked at the full moon in a barrel of eels’ eyes –’
‘I have not got spattergroit!’
‘But the unsightly blemishes upon your visage, young master –’
‘They’re freckles!’ said Ron furiously. ‘Now get back in your own picture and leave me alone!’
“You didn’t have spattergroit,” Madam Pomfrey said. “Freckles, not lesions.”
“I know,” Ron snapped.
“That portrait was incredibly rude,” Ryan said.
“You’re not weirded out that the painting talked?” Calleigh asked.
“Not anymore,” Ryan said. “Not after today.”
He rounded on the others, who were all keeping determinedly straight faces.
‘What floor’s this?’
‘I think it’s the fifth,’ said Hermione.
‘Nah, it’s the fourth,’ said Harry, ‘one more –’
But as he stepped on to the landing he came to an abrupt halt, staring at the small window set into the double doors that marked the start of a corridor signposted SPELL DAMAGE. A man was peering out at them all with his nose pressed against the glass. He had wavy blond hair, bright blue eyes and a broad vacant smile that revealed dazzlingly white teeth.
‘Blimey!’ said Ron, also staring at the man.
“No way,” Neville murmured.
“You’re having me on,” Seamus said under his breath.
“It can’t be,” Dean whispered.
“No, seriously—no way,” Seamus muttered.
“It was, though,” Neville said quietly.
“Those teeth… nah,” Dean said, shaking his head.
‘Oh, my goodness,’ said Hermione suddenly, sounding breathless. ‘Professor Lockhart!’
Their ex-Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher pushed open the doors and moved towards them, wearing a long lilac dressing gown.
‘Well, hello there!’ he said. ‘I expect you’d like my autograph, would you?’
‘Hasn’t changed much, has he?’ Harry muttered to Ginny, who grinned.
“Oh good, my wall had been feeling unloved—finally, an autograph,” Fred said.
“Get him to sign ‘To Whom It May Concern,’” George said. “Saves him remembering names.”
“Lilac dressing gown,” Lee said. “Bold. Tragic, but bold.”
“Think he does refunds on fraudulent textbooks?” Fred said.
“Careful—he’ll sign your forehead,” George said. “Ink’s permanent.”
“Silver lining,” Lee said. “His Memory Charm did work in the end—just on himself.”
‘Er – how are you, Professor?’ said Ron, sounding slightly guilty. It had been Ron’s malfunctioning wand that had damaged Professor Lockhart’s memory so badly that he had landed in St Mungo’s in the first place, though as Lockhart had been attempting to permanently wipe Harry and Ron’s memories at the time, Harry’s sympathy was limited.
“That’s a workplace accident report from hell,” Ryan said.
“Occupational hazard: ‘attempted memory wipe backfired,’” Calleigh said. “Hard to top that.”
“Nice one, Ron,” Seamus said.
“Best misfire you ever had,” Dean said.
“Couldn’t have happened to a better target,” Neville said.
“Solid aim by accident,” Ginny said.
“Ten out of ten, would malfunction again,” Fred said.
“Pure craftsmanship—by the wand, not the wizard,” George said.
‘I’m very well indeed, thank you!’ said Lockhart exuberantly, pulling a rather battered peacock-feather quill from his pocket. ‘Now, how many autographs would you like? I can do joined-up writing now, you know!’
‘Er – we don’t want any at the moment, thanks,’ said Ron, raising his eyebrows at Harry, who asked, ‘Professor, should you be wandering around the corridors? Shouldn’t you be in a ward?’
The smile faded slowly from Lockhart’s face. For a few moments he gazed intently at Harry, then he said, ‘Haven’t we met?’
‘Er … yeah, we have,’ said Harry. ‘You used to teach us at Hogwarts, remember?’
‘Teach?’ repeated Lockhart, looking faintly unsettled. ‘Me? Did I?’
“The verb ‘teach’ was doing heroic work there,” Professor McGonagall said.
“Positively buckling under the strain,” Professor Sprout said.
“He taught vanity, if anything,” Professor McGonagall said.
“And terrible horticulture,” Professor Sprout said. “My Mandrakes never forgave him.”
“Let us settle on ‘held the post,’” Professor McGonagall said.
“Briefly. And loudly,” Professor Sprout said.
And then the smile reappeared upon his face so suddenly it was rather alarming.
‘Taught you everything you know, I expect, did I? Well, how about those autographs, then? Shall we say a round dozen, you can give them to all your little friends then and nobody will be left out!’
But just then a head poked out of a door at the far end of the corridor and a voice called, ‘Gilderoy, you naughty boy, where have you wandered off to?’
A motherly-looking Healer wearing a tinsel wreath in her hair came
bustling up the corridor, smiling warmly at Harry and the others.
‘Oh, Gilderoy, you’ve got visitors! How lovely, and on Christmas Day, too! Do you know, he never gets visitors, poor lamb, and I can’t think why, he’s such a sweetie, aren’t you?’
“‘Sweetie,’ indeed,” Professor McGonagall said. “That would not have been my adjective.”
“I’d have gone with ‘spirited,’ at a stretch,” Professor Sprout said. “But ‘sweetie’ is… optimistic.”
“Delusional,” Professor Snape said. “Spectacularly.”
‘We’re doing autographs!’ Gilderoy told the Healer with another glittering smile. ‘They want loads of them, won’t take no for an answer! I just hope we’ve got enough photographs!’
‘Listen to him,’ said the Healer, taking Lockhart’s arm and beaming fondly at him as though he were a precocious two-year-old. ‘He was rather well known a few years ago; we very much hope that this liking for giving autographs is a sign that his memory might be starting to come back. Will you step this way? He’s in a closed ward, you know, he must have slipped out while I was bringing in the Christmas presents, the door’s usually kept locked
… not that he’s dangerous! But,’ she lowered her voice to a whisper, ‘he’s a bit of a danger to himself, bless him … doesn’t know who he is, you see, wanders off and can’t remember how to get back … it is nice of you to have come to see him.’
‘Er,’ said Ron, gesturing uselessly at the floor above, ‘actually, we were just – er –’
But the Healer was smiling expectantly at them, and Ron’s feeble mutter of ‘going to have a cup of tea’ trailed away into nothingness. They looked at each other helplessly, then followed Lockhart and his Healer along the corridor.
“He was dangerous,” Professor McGonagall said. “Not malicious, perhaps, but reckless enough to put children at risk.”
“Dangerous and incompetent is still dangerous,” Professor Snape said. “Ask the students he tried to Obliviate.”
“I can’t agree with ‘not dangerous,’” Professor Sprout said. “Good intentions never cancelled out the harm he caused.”
‘Let’s not stay long,’ Ron said quietly.
The Healer pointed her wand at the door of the Janus Thickey Ward and muttered, ‘Alohomora.’ The door swung open and she led the way inside, keeping a firm grasp on Gilderoy’s arm until she had settled him into an armchair beside his bed.
‘This is our long-term residents’ ward,’ she informed Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny in a low voice. ‘For permanent spell damage, you know. Of course, with intensive remedial potions and charms and a bit of luck, we can produce some improvement. Gilderoy does seem to be getting back some sense of himself; and we’ve seen a real improvement in Mr Bode, he seems to be regaining the power of speech very well, though he isn’t speaking any language we recognise yet. Well, I must finish giving out the Christmas presents, I’ll leave you all to chat.’
“‘Unrecognisable,’ huh? That could’ve just been him making noises,” Ryan said.
“Or a language none of them spoke,” Calleigh said. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“I would’ve smiled like I got it and prayed for subtitles,” Horatio said.
“If he’d yelled ‘Klingon,’ I’d have believed it,” Ryan said.
“Or Welsh,” Calleigh said. “No vowels, loads of confidence.”
“Either way, ‘not dangerous’ had been doing a lot of heavy lifting,” Horatio said.