Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (80 page)

‘Certainly,’ said James and he jerked his wand upwards; Snape fell into a crumpled heap on the ground. Disentangling himself from his robes he got quickly to his feet, wand up, but Sirius said,
‘Petrificus Totalus!’
and Snape keeled over again, rigid as a board.

‘LEAVE HIM ALONE!’ Lily shouted. She had her own wand out now. James and Sirius eyed it warily.

‘Ah, Evans, don’t make me hex you,’ said James earnestly.

‘Take the curse off him, then!’

James sighed deeply, then turned to Snape and muttered the counter-curse.

‘There you go,’ he said, as Snape struggled to his feet. ‘You’re lucky Evans was here, Snivellus –’

‘I don’t need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!’

Lily blinked.

‘Fine,’ she said coolly. ‘I won’t bother in future. And I’d wash your pants if I were you,
Snivellus
.’

‘Apologise to Evans!’ James roared at Snape, his wand pointed threateningly at him.

‘I don’t want
you
to make him apologise,’ Lily shouted, rounding on James. ‘You’re as bad as he is.’

‘What?’ yelped James. ‘I’d NEVER call you a – you-know-what!’

‘Messing up your hair because you think it looks cool to look like you’ve just got off your broomstick, showing off with that stupid Snitch, walking down corridors and hexing anyone who annoys you just because you can
–
I’m surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on it. You make me SICK.’

She turned on her heel and hurried away.

‘Evans!’ James shouted after her. ‘Hey, EVANS!’

But she didn’t look back.

‘What is it with her?’ said James, trying and failing to look as though this was a throwaway question of no real importance to him.

‘Reading between the lines, I’d say she thinks you’re a bit conceited, mate,’ said Sirius.

‘Right,’ said James, who looked furious now, ‘right –’

There was another flash of light, and Snape was once again hanging upside-down in the air.

‘Who wants to see me take off Snivelly’s pants?’

But whether James really did take off Snape’s pants, Harry never found out. A hand had closed tight over his upper arm, closed with a pincer-like grip. Wincing, Harry looked round to see who had hold of him, and saw, with a thrill of horror, a fully grown, adult-sized Snape standing right beside him, white with rage.

‘Having fun?’

Harry felt himself rising into the air; the summer’s day evaporated around him; he was floating upwards through icy blackness, Snape’s hand still tight upon his upper arm. Then, with a swooping feeling as though he had turned head-over-heels in midair, his feet hit the stone floor of Snape’s dungeon and he was standing again beside the Pensieve on Snape’s desk in the shadowy, present-day Potion master’s study.

‘So,’ said Snape, gripping Harry’s arm so tightly Harry’s hand was starting to feel numb. ‘
So
… been enjoying yourself, Potter?’

‘N-no,’ said Harry, trying to free his arm.

It was scary: Snape’s lips were shaking, his face was white, his teeth were bared.

‘Amusing man, your father, wasn’t he?’ said Snape, shaking Harry so hard his glasses slipped down his nose.

‘I – didn’t –’

Snape threw Harry from him with all his might. Harry fell hard on to the dungeon floor.

‘You will not tell anybody what you saw!’ Snape bellowed.

‘No,’ said Harry, getting to his feet as far from Snape as he could. ‘No, of course I w––’

‘Get out, get out, I don’t want to see you in this office ever again!’

And as Harry hurtled towards the door, a jar of dead cockroaches exploded over his head. He wrenched the door open and flew along the corridor, stopping only when he had put three floors between himself and Snape. There he leaned against the wall, panting, and rubbing his bruised arm.

He had no desire at all to return to Gryffindor Tower so early, nor to tell Ron and Hermione what he had just seen. What was making Harry feel so horrified and unhappy was not being shouted at or having jars thrown at him; it was that he knew how it felt to be humiliated in the middle of a circle of onlookers, knew exactly how Snape had felt as his father had taunted him, and that judging from what he had just seen, his father had been every bit as arrogant as Snape had always told him.

‘But why haven’t you got Occlumency lessons any more?’ said Hermione, frowning.

‘I’ve
told
you,’ Harry muttered. ‘Snape reckons I can carry on by myself now I’ve got the basics.’

‘So you’ve stopped having funny dreams?’ said Hermione sceptically.

‘Pretty much,’ said Harry, not looking at her.

‘Well, I don’t think Snape should stop until you’re absolutely sure you can control them!’ said Hermione indignantly. ‘Harry, I think you should go back to him and ask –’

‘No,’ said Harry forcefully. ‘Just drop it, Hermione, OK?’

It was the first day of the Easter holidays and Hermione, as was her custom, had spent a large part of the day drawing up revision timetables for the three of them. Harry and Ron had let her do it; it was easier than arguing with her and, in any case, they might come in useful.

Ron had been startled to discover there were only six weeks left until their exams.

‘How can that come as a shock?’ Hermione demanded, as she tapped each little square on Ron’s timetable with her wand so that it flashed a different colour according to its subject.

‘I dunno,’ said Ron, ‘there’s been a lot going on.’

‘Well, there you are,’ she said, handing him his timetable, ‘if you follow that you should do fine.’

Ron looked down it gloomily, but then brightened.

‘You’ve given me an evening off every week!’

‘That’s for Quidditch practice,’ said Hermione.

The smile faded from Ron’s face.

‘What’s the point?’ he said. ‘We’ve got about as much chance of winning the Quidditch Cup this year as Dad’s got of becoming Minister for Magic.’

Hermione said nothing; she was looking at Harry, who was staring blankly at the opposite wall of the common room while Crookshanks pawed at his hand, trying to get his ears scratched.

‘What’s wrong, Harry?’

‘What?’ he said quickly. ‘Nothing.’

He seized his copy of
Defensive Magical Theory
and pretended to be looking something up in the index. Crookshanks gave him up as a bad job and slunk away under Hermione’s chair.

‘I saw Cho earlier,’ said Hermione tentatively. ‘She looked really miserable, too … have you two had a row again?’

‘Wha— oh, yeah, we have,’ said Harry, seizing gratefully on the excuse.

‘What about?’

‘That sneak friend of hers, Marietta,’ said Harry.

‘Yeah, well, I don’t blame you!’ said Ron angrily, setting down his revision timetable. ‘If it hadn’t been for her …’

Ron went into a rant about Marietta Edgecombe, which Harry found helpful; all he had to do was look angry, nod and say ‘Yeah’ and ‘That’s right’ whenever Ron drew breath, leaving his mind free to dwell, ever more miserably, on what he had seen in the Pensieve.

He felt as though the memory of it was eating him from inside. He had been so sure his parents were wonderful people that he had never had the slightest difficulty in disbelieving the aspersions Snape cast on his father’s character. Hadn’t people like Hagrid and Sirius
told
Harry how wonderful his father had been? (
Yeah, well, look what Sirius was like himself,
said a nagging voice inside Harry’s head …
he was as bad, wasn’t he?
) Yes, he had once overheard Professor McGonagall saying that his father and Sirius had been troublemakers at school, but she had described them as forerunners of the Weasley twins, and Harry could not imagine Fred and George dangling someone upside-down for the fun of it … not unless they really loathed them … perhaps Malfoy, or somebody who really deserved it …

Harry tried to make a case for Snape having deserved what he had suffered at James’s hands: but hadn’t Lily asked, ‘What’s he done to you?’ And hadn’t James replied, ‘It’s more the fact that he
exists
, if you know what I mean.’ Hadn’t James started it all simply because Sirius had said he was bored? Harry remembered Lupin saying back in Grimmauld Place that Dumbledore had made him prefect in the hope that he would be able to exercise some control over James and Sirius … but in the Pensieve, he had sat there and let it all happen …

Harry kept reminding himself that Lily had intervened; his mother had been decent. Yet, the memory of the look on her face as she had shouted at James disturbed him quite as much as anything else; she had clearly loathed James, and Harry simply could not understand how they could have ended up married. Once or twice he even wondered whether James had forced her into it …

For nearly five years the thought of his father had been a source of comfort, of inspiration. Whenever someone had told him he was like James, he had glowed with pride inside. And now … now he felt cold and miserable at the thought of him.

The weather grew breezier, brighter and warmer as the Easter holidays passed, but Harry, along with the rest of the fifth- and seventh-years, was trapped inside, revising, traipsing back and forth to the library. Harry pretended his bad mood had no other cause but the approaching exams, and as his fellow Gryffindors were sick of studying themselves, his excuse went unchallenged.

‘Harry, I’m talking to you, can you hear me?’

‘Huh?’

He looked round. Ginny Weasley, looking very windswept, had joined him at the library table where he had been sitting alone. It was late on Sunday evening: Hermione had gone back to Gryffindor Tower to revise Ancient Runes, and Ron had Quidditch practice.

‘Oh, hi,’ said Harry, pulling his books towards him. ‘How come you’re not at practice?’

‘It’s over,’ said Ginny. ‘Ron had to take Jack Sloper up to the hospital wing.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, we’re not sure, but we
think
he knocked himself out with his own bat.’ She sighed heavily. ‘Anyway … a package just arrived, it’s only just got through Umbridge’s new screening process.’

She hoisted a box wrapped in brown paper on to the table; it had clearly been unwrapped and carelessly re-wrapped. There was a scribbled note across it in red ink, reading:
Inspected and Passed by the Hogwarts High Inquisitor.

‘It’s Easter eggs from Mum,’ said Ginny. ‘There’s one for you … there you go.’

She handed him a handsome chocolate egg decorated with small, iced Snitches and, according to the packaging, containing a bag of Fizzing Whizzbees. Harry looked at it for a moment, then, to his horror, felt a lump rise in his throat.

‘Are you OK, Harry?’ Ginny asked quietly.

‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ said Harry gruffly. The lump in his throat was painful. He did not understand why an Easter egg should have made him feel like this.

‘You seem really down lately,’ Ginny persisted. ‘You know, I’m sure if you just
talked
to Cho …’

‘It’s not Cho I want to talk to,’ said Harry brusquely.

‘Who is it, then?’ asked Ginny.

‘I …’

He glanced around to make quite sure nobody was listening. Madam Pince was several shelves away, stamping out a pile of books for a frantic-looking Hannah Abbott.

‘I wish I could talk to Sirius,’ he muttered. ‘But I know I can’t.’

More to give himself something to do than because he really wanted any, Harry unwrapped his Easter egg, broke off a large bit and put it into his mouth.

‘Well,’ said Ginny slowly, helping herself to a bit of egg, too, ‘if you really want to talk to Sirius, I expect we could think of a way to do it.’

‘Come on,’ said Harry hopelessly. ‘With Umbridge policing the fires and reading all our mail?’

‘The thing about growing up with Fred and George,’ said Ginny thoughtfully, ‘is that you sort of start thinking anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve.’

Harry looked at her. Perhaps it was the effect of the chocolate – Lupin had always advised eating some after encounters with Dementors – or simply because he had finally spoken aloud the wish that had been burning inside him for a week, but he felt a bit more hopeful.

‘WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?’

‘Oh damn,’ whispered Ginny, jumping to her feet. ‘I forgot –’

Madam Pince was swooping down on them, her shrivelled face contorted with rage.

‘Chocolate in the library!’
she screamed. ‘Out –
out
– OUT!’

And whipping out her wand, she caused Harry’s books, bag and ink bottle to chase him and Ginny from the library, whacking them repeatedly over the head as they ran.

*

As though to underline the importance of their upcoming examinations, a batch of pamphlets, leaflets and notices concerning various wizarding careers appeared on the tables in Gryffindor Tower shortly before the end of the holidays, along with yet another notice on the board, which read:

CAREERS ADVICE

All fifth-years are required to attend a short meeting with their Head of House during the first week of the summer term to discuss their future careers. Times of individual appointments are listed below.

Harry looked down the list and found that he was expected in Professor McGonagall’s office at half past two on Monday, which would mean missing most of Divination. He and the other fifth-years spent a considerable part of the final weekend of the Easter break reading all the careers information that had been left there for their perusal.

‘Well, I don’t fancy Healing,’ said Ron on the last evening of the holidays. He was immersed in a leaflet that carried the crossed bone-and-wand emblem of St Mungo’s on its front. ‘It says here you need at least “E” at N.E.W.T. level in Potions, Herbology, Transfiguration, Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts. I mean … blimey … don’t want much, do they?’

‘Well, it’s a very responsible job, isn’t it?’ said Hermione absently. She was poring over a bright pink and orange leaflet that was headed, ‘SO YOU THINK YOU’D LIKE TO WORK IN MUGGLE RELATIONS? You don’t seem to need many qualifications to liaise with Muggles; all they want is an O.W.L. in Muggle Studies:
Much more important is your enthusiasm, patience and a good sense of fun
!’