After the Dursleys had departed, Harry would have liked to enjoy the peace and quiet in the house but he had to admit to himself that he only found it depressing. He had a bowl of corn flakes and for a moment dwelt on the idea of leaving the remaining milk standing on the kitchen table, as a nice welcome to the Dursleys when they returned in three weeks time. But then he thought it childish, poured the rest away and even rinsed his breakfast dishes.
He could now have watched TV at leisure but that was no incentive either.
The feeling of spending the last minutes in this house did seem a bit queer.
He hoped that they would come soon while he was watching the minute hand of the clock which seemed to be moving far too slowly to the point of showing nine thirty. He wondered if he would immediately have to take his trunk and everything while travelling by flee network to the Burroughs. This perspective was not very appealing.
Harry closed all the windows, shut down the water and switched on the alarm, as uncle Vernon had impressed on him. Then he didn't think it below him to mix some puking pastilles to the, as Dudley believed, hidden sweets. On the contrary, he felt great satisfaction when he closed the lid on the alleged letter case.
At twenty five minutes past eight Harry got hold of his trunk which was already standing in the hall and the cage accommodating Hedwig, still resting from her flights during the previous days, and left the house in which he had grown up. He locked the door and dropped the key in the letter box. Then he descended the stairs and stood on Privet Drive.
The sun was shining in a high, blue sky with fluffy, white clouds sailing along. Harry took a deep breath of summer air and unexpectedly felt a wild happiness. At that moment a small red car came rattling down the street, blowing its horn loudly as it passed him and coming to a screeching halt.
"Harry, it's us!" Hermione yelled.
Harry gaped at the very small car from which his school friend Hermione had peeled herself. Radiant – and somehow transformed – she ran toward him and gave him a hug.
"Happy birthday, Harry!"
"Thanks! Hey, you can drive?" Harry was impressed.
"I wouldn't exactly call it driving," said a groaning voice from the front passenger seat. Ron's face showed a green tinge and he had some difficulties trying to get his long legs out of the car.
"Don't listen to him; he must have eaten at least fifty chocolate frogs since we left. Honestly, I thought people would be over chocolate frogs by the age of seventeen!"
"Sure, provided they are as grown up as you are." Ron had meanwhile successfully managed to get out on the street. "Boy, did you see that hair of hers?"
That was it! Hermione's bushy hair had been shortened and now curled around her head at chin's length.
"She had it cut off because she thought it would make her look more mature," Ron said disparagingly. "I think it looks stupid."
Harry thought that it didn't sound as though they had made any progress in their relationship during the past week. But he was happy to see them!
"Do you believe that my trunk will fit in there?" he dubiously asked. "And the cage as well?"
"I recommend you use floo powder. Or take the train!" Ron said. "She drives like a maniac."
"Oh, really –" Hermione exclaimed in indignation.
"It's great that you came! And even with a car! I actually thought we would have to use the chimney."
As he carried his trunk to the booth, Ron asked, "Where are the Dursleys? Hiding behind the curtains?"
"No, they left for Majorca yesterday. That quickens the parting. Let's get going!" Harry put Hedwig's cage on the rear seat and squeezed in next to her. There was a lot of chocolate frog wrapping lying around. Ron squashed himself into the front passenger seat and the car jolted as Hermione headed it down the street. Hedwig hooted in disapproval and then Privet Drive lay behind Harry for ever.
"Any news?" This was the most important question and Harry put it straight away because he was quite cut off, living in the Muggle world. He presumed that this time they would let him have any significant news without him asking.
"Nothing," Ron said. "Nobody understands why. I mean, after all that happened, you-know-wh – ehm, Voldemort would have taken some kind of action. But nothing, silent as a grave."
A badly picked phrase.
Hermione pinned her eyes to the road.
"Where did you get the car?" Harry asked to change the topic.
"My parents gave it to me as a present. They thought I should at least be able to drive a car. I got my licence last week," Hermione smugly declared.
"You can't help but notice," Ron murmured. "You should let Hedwig fly; otherwise she will certainly spew on the seat."
"Where are we going?" Harry inquired while giving his owl a worried glance.
"That's a surprise, Harry. Just wait and see."
After the usual leg-pulling they fell unusually quiet. All three were reluctant to talk about Hogwarts or Dumbledore but all thoughts finally went in that direction. In the end, it was Hermione who broke the silence.
"By the way, now you could surely tell us what you so urgently wanted from McGonagall before we left."
Hard to believe but Harry really hadn't thought about that at all in the past three weeks. He also recalled something else that he had urgently wanted to tell them. "It was about the vanishing cabinet. I told you that Malfoy had repaired the broken cabinet in the room of requirement."
"And that the matching one was at Borgin and Burkes so that he was able to bring the Death Eaters in to Hogwarts that way."
"Exactly. I just had to ask if they had locked that thing securely. Do you understand – during that night everything got so confused and after that it wasn't talked about any more. I was simply afraid they could have forgotten it! I only just remembered that at the station. Well, then I took my broom, went back and –"
"And the train was kept waiting for an hour until you came back," Ron remarked.
"And – what had they done with it?" Hermione inquired.
"They actually hadn't done anything until then. Who knows, maybe they wouldn't even have found it, without someone who had already been in that particular version of the room. In a joint effort we then found that thing and put it in McGonagall's office. They sealed it with all kinds of spells. They didn't want to destroy it, just in case they might still need it some day."
He again saw himself marching up and down the corridor on the seventh floor, worried that he might not be able to reopen the room of requirement. But it worked and he was able to lead Hagrid and McGonagall to the vanishing cabinet. While Hagrid made an effort to carry the cabinet out of the room, he tried to find something else. Luckily, Professor McGonagall had already returned to the corridor.
"And then – well, I looked for the book that had belonged to the Half-Blood Price. I had hidden it near by." Harry stopped talking. Thinking of the book – a thought that led him straight to Snape – he felt his insides contract.
"You got that book out of there? After all that's happened?" Hermione snapped.
"Watch out!" Ron screamed. "You're driving on the foot path!"
Hermione got a better hold of the steering wheel.
"That was just the reason I wanted the book back," Harry replied. "But it was gone."
"It was gone?"
"Hermione, please stop the car while you're so agitated," Ron begged. "My stomach can't put up with any more of your jolty driving."
"Ron, don't you understand what that means?" Hermione exclaimed.
"Harry will have to buy a new book Advanced Potion-Making," Ron said.
"He took it with him." Harry's voice was full of disgust. "I'm sure he knew where I had hidden it. He must have read it from my face when he asked me. I don't know how he did it – if he really returned after all that – but it was him, I'm sure."
A moment of gloomy silence followed.
"Let's not talk about Snape, okay?" Hermione finally suggested in a low voice. "It's your birthday today and we want to celebrate."
oooOOOooo
Around them the traffic was continuously growing heavier and Harry wondered why they were going into London. As, once more, a chorus of horns sounded from behind them because Hermione again stalled the car at a traffic light, Ron said "Why don't you shift to flight gear?"
Hermione gave him a nerved side glance.
"Honestly, Hermione, let's leave the car and take the – the subway. I already did that with dad a few times."
"I got to Little Whinging too, didn't I?"
"Yes, but you barely managed even that. And there is far more traffic now! And you've been driving for a fairly long time already. I mean, we did want to have a party today, didn't we?"
A few minutes later Hermione missed the required exit and was getting more irritable. Finally she drove through a maze of streets in total despair as all of them turned out to be the wrong ones. Harry was wise enough not to contribute to the nagging going on, but in the end Hermione said, "Okay. We'll take the subway. I'll just drive the car to my parent's place."
"They live in London?" Harry asked in surprise, although he had never thought about it. He wondered why he had never lost a thought about Hermione's Muggle origin. Then he came up with an idea. "How did your parents cope with hearing that you are a witch? Didn't it shock them, as they found that out – and heard of Hogwarts and so on?"
"To their mind, everyone has to make his own fortune. Apart from that, they are very busy with their dental practice – I don't suppose they spend much time thinking about it."
After this they grew quiet again and Hermione found the way to her parents' house in the end and luckily the next subway was close at hand. In the very crowded train Harry had a hard time with his trunk while Ron, holding Hedwig's cage, was getting increasingly angry and attracted the curiosity of the other passengers. It was a relief to everyone when Hermione finally announced that they had to get off.
"We're on our way to Grimmauld Place!" said Harry as they had made it to the surface and the sunshine.
"Surprise!"
"That was my suspicion all the time while we were heading into London."
"Initially we wanted to have a ball with you in there," Ron said while sullenly looking at the front of the pub directly opposite them. "She didn't want to."
Hermione ignored that. She concentrated on reading the sign posts.
Harry badly wished that his trunk wasn't so heavy or that he could at least do magic. He was convinced though that a trunk floating on air in the middle of London would not exactly be inconspicuous.
"Did you realized that it was really good luck that you came to Sirius' house last year?" The question came from Hermione who had obviously now found the right way and was striding ahead at a good pace.
"Why?" Harry panted.
"You wouldn't have been able to get in this year. Not after Dumbledore –"
"Are you talking about this secret spell, fidibus or whatever?" Ron asked while carrying Hedwig's cage without much effort but to the inhabitant's discontent.
Hermione rolled her eyes in anguish. "Fidelius Charm! Yes, exactly."
"Well, I didn't really get that anyway."
But the matter became clear to Harry just then. "Oh damned, you're right! He was the secret keeper to the whereabouts of it and that means that only people he confided in can find the house. Moody showed me a note with the address written on it by Dumbledore."
Ron nodded. "Dad showed us something like that, too."
"That also means that the Order cannot admit any new members. At least not at these headquarters," Hermione continued a little complacently.
Harry thought that there was even more to it but at that moment Hermione cried out: "Oh, there it is!"
Right enough; as Harry looked around he recognized Grimmauld Place although it had been night time when he had seen it previously and not bright sunshine. He was wondering how they could stay unnoticed, entering a house that could not be spotted, with all these people passing by. Only a few steps further they had reached number eleven and stopped hesitantly.
"Now what?"
"Let them pass first," Hermione whispered, nodding her head toward a young woman with a pram. Their eyes followed her and she stopped in front of number thirteen of all places and tackled the difficult task of pulling her keys out from underneath nappy packages and leek sticks.
"Completely concentrate on the right address now!"
Harry felt like standing in front of the room of requirement. But it was easier here. As previously, the front of the house just pushed itself between the previously neighbouring houses. As they stood on the front steps, they heard the baby in the pram cry while the woman dropped the key and bent down cursing.
Hermione, Ron and Harry looked at each other as they faced the snakelike knocker.
"Boy, it's your house," Ron stated with a bit of envy.
"I'm glad to get rid of the trunk!" Harry said. He was not as happily surprised as the others thought him to be. He didn't recall Sirius' house being a place that made him feel at home.
"Why don't you just knock?" Ron encouraged him.
"Ehm – you seemed to have forgotten what would happen?"
"Come on!" Hermione said with a grin.
So Harry knocked and seconds later Fred and George stood in front of them.
"At last! We were sure Hermione would take you to the junk yard. Tonks has been laying out the table for hours!"
And covered with a lot of hallos and best wishes Harry entered the house of the Blacks', left to him by his godfather Sirius. Ron and Hermione followed. He didn't get far, staring in amazement at the light and friendly hall, when an aria from a grand opera resounded just as though it came from a radio someone had turned to full volume.
"When did you get a radio?"
"You've got one now, Harry," Hermione giggled. "But it's only got this one station! Listen closely!"
As Harry listened, he recognized the words that the singer presented with a broad coloratura: "Filth! Scum! Monstrous products of dirt and vileness! Half-bloods, mutants, henceforth from here! …" And so it went on. The three newly-arrived stared at each other and then burst out with unquenchable laughter.
"George had the idea!" Ron spluttered. "We just didn't get the portrait of Sirius' mum down off the wall and she didn't want to shut up either."
"So we just stuck a song spell on her; Hermione found that out."
"Cantate! Got that from Gilderoy Lockhart's Break with a Banshee."
"Luckily at least one of us read his collected works."
"And what did you do to the entrance hall? It used to be so dim."
"Scrubbed, painted and tidied –"
"Not only here, you will be –"
"You can show him the house later!" George interrupted. "Let's get something to eat! Mum will kill us if we let everything get cold."
"Is she here too?" Harry had already wondered that only so few Weasleys had shown up.
"No, all the others apologize for not coming. They have too much work because of Bill's wedding in two days time. They couldn't spare more than three of us. And we will be leaving straight after we finished eating.”
“But mum cooked for you. We had to apparate with three giant picnic baskets. Wouldn't like to imagine what we would look like now if anything went wrong," Fred ended his explanation.
Harry felt disappointed that Ginny hadn't come. He noted the absence of Molly Weasley with shameful relief. He could not have borne her solicitude and motherly care at that moment.
“I had forgotten that Bill's wedding is on the day after tomorrow."
"You're lucky!" Ron sighed in exasperation. "We have been smothered with silk fabrics, plans of table decoration, seating orders –"
"Besides bursts of tears and a general overdose of Phlegm," George added. "At least we can always sneak away to the shop."
Still astounded Harry followed the others to the dining room on the ground floor, flooded with sunshine, cleaned and endowed with light coloured furniture. The long table in the middle of the room was nicely set and loaded with steaming dishes. Harry was very happy as he noticed that Lupin had come too. Remus Lupin, a little more grey, came toward him smiling.
"All my best wishes, Harry."
"Sit down everybody. The wine is finally uncorked, too," Nymphadora Tonks called, holding two opened bottles while she tripped into the room.
"We should have employed a new house-elf," Fred said to George.
"But where will you find one with hair as red as tomatoes?" George answered and caught an angry look from Tonks. Her hair now really had the colour of a beautifully ripe tomato, leading Harry to the assumption that things were going well between her and Lupin.
At least somebody is happy, he thought.
He sat down next to Lupin and the look of the meal Molly Weasley had prepared made his mouth water. As all of them had found a seat another guest walked in the door.
Alastor ‘Mad-Eye' Moody looked hurried but totally in his element.
"Seem to have just come in time!" he said while looking at Harry across the table with his two different eyes.
"No speech now, Alastor!" Fred and George called simultaneously. "We have to have something to eat first!"
Moody had already opened his mouth but now closed it again and sat down. "Well, boys, you're right. It really looks too good."
And so everyone dug in. Moody didn't get up again until everything had been eaten up.
"Hope you can put up with a few words now. Harry, I would like to extend warm congratulations to you on your birthday and majority. I'm also speaking on behalf of all the members of the Order of the Phoenix."
Tonks poured more wine and he raised his refilled goblet. "We also want to express our sincere gratitude for your consent to our still using this house for our headquarters. As you can surely imagine, most of us can't stick around much lately." His scary face saddened at that for a moment. "This day is not solely a happy day. You had a very special protection and now have lost it. For that reason Remus Lupin will from now on keep an eye on you continuously! He will also join you at Hogwarts from this September on and stay there as long as you will."
Harry felt Ron and Hermione look at him and avoided their eyes.
"We hope that you will successfully finish your last year of school despite all of this and then start training to be an Auror. We would all be happy – honoured if you would become member in the Order of the Phoenix after you finished school."
"Ehm – thank you all," Harry said under the impression that a reply was expected. "To be honest – I don't yet know where to go from here."
You don't know what I know, he thought with a pang of anger. Voldemort won't ask if I have successfully finished school.
Moody and Lupin sized him with sharp intent.
"Is it certain yet that Hogwarts will keep up teaching?" Harry asked to break the silence.
"The school remains open and Minerva McGonagall is the preliminary head mistress," Moody replied. "We have assigned more guards to Hogwarts as well."
Worked ever so well last year, Harry thought.
"And the number of Aurors the ministry detached to looking for Snape and the young Malfoy has also been increased."
Snape! Harry now recalled what he had wanted to say earlier on. "Snape can get in here any time!" he burst out. "He was member of the Order!"
Moody and Lupin exchanged glances.
"We're aware of that. This house is under constant guard. Let's call it a calculated risk!" Moody growled. "At least he can't take anyone with him."
"Snape – a calculated risk?" Harry no longer tried to control himself. "As far as he is concerned the only thing that can be calculated is his unpredictability!"
"Harry, that's not the topic now," Lupin said quietly but decisively. "You should really return to Hogwarts. To be precise, it is the safest place the community of wizards presently has to offer."
Harry looked at him doubtfully.
"How would you feel about giving Harry his presents now?" Hermione suggested because she sensed that Harry was feeling very uncomfortable at the moment.
"Good idea," Ron answered.
"I'll clear the table," Tonks offered.
"Hey Tonks!" Fred called. And George said, "Never mind, Tonks!"
Both waved their wands in the direction of the table. It was cleared immediately. Even the gravy stains had left the table cloth. They heard a low, orderly clanking noise from the kitchen.
"And now all things nicely back into the baskets."
"Mum is very attached to her dishes, you know."
Tonks, notorious for her clumsiness, snorted. But George now turned to Harry.
"Originally we had planned to give you a package of Potter's Practical Pastilles, for the name of course but also because you're a man now –"
"But since we've got the shop those are always out," Fred added. They smirked. "An old house remedy rediscovered: Potter's Practical Pastilles – and HE will stand up like your wand!'"
"Boys, there are ladies present!" Lupin warned.
"Oh well, what ever. We decided to choose a second highlight from our collection," Fred pompously declared and held something out to Harry that looked like a fat roll of adhesive tape. "Extendable ears, the improved version," he explained because of Harry's puzzled look.
"We thought the transparent ones far less conspicuous," George added. "And that's from us as well."
He presented Harry with a small cardboard box bearing the inscription Snails and Wails. Harry extracted a round object from it and taking a closer look, found that it was a glass flask formed like a snail's house. A small piece of string was attached to it.
"A product from our new collection called Spray and Flee!. We have just got it ready for distribution now and you're the first person to get one," Fred said.
"Fits nicely in your hand. And to avoid loosing it in the wrong moment, you can wear it like a bracelet," George complemented smugly.
"Oh, no!" Ron exclaimed. "You didn't really bottle that! I should get a share of your earnings."
"He badly suffered for it, our Won-Won," Fred admitted. "It took us quite some time until this worked the way it did with Ron's broken wand."
"It's a Snail-Vomiting-Spray, Harry. You remember that curse against Malfoy which went wrong in our second year?"
"I don't think anyone who saw you then can ever forget that," Harry replied, looking at the would-be harmless flask with both disgust and fascination. He very well remembered how Ron had at regular intervals throughout several hours disgorged loads of snails.
"Since then they have always made fun of me because of it –"
"We tried all sorts of things until we finally got it. Actually cost us a wand."
"Make sure you don't get that on yourself if you spray it at someone," George warned. "There's a good reason we called this series Spray and Flee! We've got a few more nice things planned and hope to be seeing you at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes shortly."
"And now we'll show you our birthday present!" said Hermione. "Come along!"
oooOOOooo
Harry thanked Fred and George – and spent just a short moment wondering if Snails and Wails would possibly come in handy when fighting Voldemort. Then he followed his friends who were leaving the dining room. Lupin joined them.
Once more he admired the change of appearance in the entrance hall. The floors everywhere in the house were laid with black stones that had looked dull and greasy when he last saw them. Meanwhile they had been abraded and polished, leaving them shimmering in a dark black-green like the surface of a forest lake. It might still not be the floor he would have chosen for his house but undeniably looked quite beautiful. The entire snake adorned little tables, the sinister portraits – with the exception of Mrs Black – had disappeared from the hall and the stair way. As Harry passed her this time, Sirius' mum in her dark frame just closed her eyes in disgust and pulled a mouth as though she had to swallow something particularly bitter. Harry thought that to be a clear improvement. His mood was even better when he found that the panels with heads of the Blacks' former house-elves no longer decorated the walls above the stairs.
The stairs to the left led to the first floor where the drawing-room could be found, in which they had previously spent so many hours looking at the queer things that had been collected by the Black family. He was astonished to find a new wall here with a beautiful door of carved dark wood. Hermione stood in front of it and turned to Harry beaming. There was a knocker on the door formed like a golden snitch. Above it there was a sign that read Harry Potter.
"Well, what do you say?"
"Hermione let him go inside first!"
"These are your private rooms!" Hermione proudly announced as she opened the door and beckoned Harry inside. He followed her on the corridor, now much friendlier due to numerous additional lights – and then came the drawing-room.
It was a large, oblong room and the sunshine of a summer afternoon poured in through the double-winged door from the balcony on the longer side of the room. There had been moss green velvet curtains here before, which, in the years of neglect, were eventually inhabited by a large number of Doxies. Harry hadn't even known that there was a balcony behind them. Now he could hear the wind in the branches of the two chestnut trees outside.
The horrible glass cabinets, the olive coloured tapestry, the musty carpeting and the ancient, rat-gnawed furniture that Harry well remembered, had all disappeared. Instead, the room now looked wide and fresh due to the pale green gold colour the walls had been painted in, and the stone floor showed this shimmering smoothness, now and then covered by light coloured heavy woollen carpets. There was an ample collection of comfortable looking armchairs, upholstered stools and two sofas arranged around a low table in front of the fire place. The other side of the room was dominated by a large, unadorned desk made of dark wood and the walls behind it were covered with floor to ceiling book shelves made of the same wood. The escritoire that had harboured the Boggart was nowhere to be found.
"I simply can't believe it!" was the most that Harry could say. He was really speechless now.
Hermione opened a door next to the shelves on one wall. Harry entered a very much smaller room with a window from which he could also see the chestnut trees. The only furniture in here was a low and broad bed and a spacious wardrobe, made of the same wood as desk and shelves in the drawing room. Over the bed, fixed to the wall, there was a giant poster of the Chudley Cannons presenting a wild chase for the snitch. Harry let himself drop right across the bed – his bed, his first own bed if he wasn't just dreaming.
"Crazy!" was his only comment.
"So, you like it? I wasn't sure if we should really take this dark wood and to Ron the green gold colour is just embarrassing but –"
"Hermione, just stop! It's great! Simply tremendous! I love you both! And the green gold as well!"
For a short moment it looked as though the Golden Snitch would fly straight out of the poster into the room, followed by the Cannons' seeker.
"How did you ever do all this? And when? This was nothing but a horror cabinet before!"
"All the Weasleys helped," Hermione said with a radiant smile.
"Except for Percy, of course," Ron murmured.
"We didn't really get started until the holidays. I mean, it had been decontaminated already and Mrs Weasley had abraded the floors and cleaned everything properly last year. And so on."
"Well, we didn't know until last year that Sirius had left you this house. The Order will continue to meet in the kitchen down in the cellars so that you will always find something to eat. By the way, you've also got a bath room, right here."
"And the remaining wings of the house are for guests' rooms where mainly Moody and I will be staying frequently," said Lupin while he stopped in the doorway. "To be quite honest, I will be here most of the time I don't spend travelling. I'll be a constant guest of yours, so to speak, Harry."
"You are always welcome," Harry replied and meant it.
"I've got a present for you, too," Lupin said and handed a long and narrow box to Harry, who opened it and took out two quills. "These are port keys, approved ones!" he added on seeing the alarmed look on Hermione's face.
"You can take one along with you and leave the other one on your desk or so. That's the way you can always return to your house."
Harry first stared at the quills and then at Lupin.
"I had heard that you don't like apparating much," he explained with a smile.
"And he hasn't got his licence yet," said Ron.
"Thank you," Harry said with a deeply moved heart. "Everybody!"
On returning to the drawing-room he asked: "Where did all the belongings of the Blacks go?"
"Oh, you can see the few remains here!" Hermione replied and gestured to the long wall opposite the balcony.
In the same place as before was the ancient wall hanging with the family tree of the Blacks. Harry hadn't noticed it when he came in first. The grey goblin didn't even look that bad on the pale green wall and the gold embroidery matched the gold part of the wall colour.
"We couldn't get it off," said Ron. "Nearly everybody tried but even Hermione gave up after a while."
"The remaining things are up-stairs in Mrs Black's old room," Hermione continued.
"We cleaned everything and put it in the cabinets," Lupin remarked. "We didn't throw anything away after Sirius – died."
"The books went into these shelves," Hermione hurried to explain. "There are some very rare ones too and lots of the kind that are strictly locked up back at Hogwarts."
Lupin left them; he wanted to have a word with Moody before the latter would leave the house. When finally Fred and George had also dropped in and said good bye, the three of them were left on their own.
Harry decided to inaugurate his new rooms by taking his things out of the trunk and stowing them away in the wardrobe and the shelves. Three weeks in the trunk were definitely enough. While Hermione inspected the Blacks' books and Ron made himself comfortable in an armchair, Harry dug musty clothes and books out of his trunk and piled them to heaps and stacks around him.
"They really had a lot on black magic," Hermione murmured excitedly with her nose in a book. "You can't get your hands on anything like this at Hogwarts."
Harry grabbed an armful of books and started putting them on one of the empty shelves.
"Hey, man!" Ron was astonished. He had taken the trouble to hand some of the books to Harry and then reached for a book one shelf up. "Look, that's Advanced Potion-Making! Lucky that Sirius' school books are still around!"
"Yeah, fine." Harry wasn't very enthusiastic when he took the book Ron handed to him, to sort it in with his other school books. He wasn't sure he would still need school books.
"Ugh, that's awful!" Hermione said and closed a big book, bound in green leather, with a slam, rousing up the dust. Then she saw Harry's face. He stood there, frozen and looking at the book he was holding in disbelief. "What's wrong?"
"It's – his. The book that had belonged to the Half-blood Prince!"
"Rubbish! That's impossible, isn't it?" Ron looked over Harry shoulder. "Oh boy," he said quietly as he recognized the familiar tiny, scribbled, hand written comments all over the pages. Hermione and he jumped when the book hit the floor with a loud thump after Harry had dropped it.
"I don't want it any more. I don't even want to touch it!" he said white lipped.
"So he's already been here," Hermione whispered appalled. "That much to the house being guarded continuously! Snape must have been here! If it was really him who took the book from the room of requirement."
"Who else could have done it?"
"Why should he give it back to you?" Ron interjected sceptically. "Considering that he was keen on having it back?"
"To – to warn us. Show what he's capable of. That's a threat!" Harry stammered while trying to get the picture out of his head when Snape –
"'I'm always one step ahead of you' or something like that."
"Exactly!"
"Not so hard to do, by the way he strides around," Ron remarked.
This was enough for Hermione. "Couldn't you just stop? You're making stupid comments all day. It's NOT FUNNY!"
She picked up the book and Ron's face twisted.
"To my mind you're just getting too worked up about this. Snape surely had better things to do than to rush to the headquarters of the Order to return that book to Harry. It must have been somebody else, who knows, maybe even Hagrid."
"What a lot of nonsense," Hermione snorted "How would he have known, not counting all the other difficulties? No, it must have been Snape."
She turned a few pages. On doing that her eyes fell on a comment titled Sectumsempra and she slammed the book shut in disgust. "We have to tell Moody this immediately. They have to reinforce the guards."
Then she put the book in the shelf holding Harry's other school books. "Maybe you will need it some day. It's no doubt an advantage to know his particular recipes and spells."
"That's exactly what's bothering me," Harry said wonderingly. "Why does he want me to know them?"
"By the way, Moody is just about to leave," Ron reported. "I can hear him down stairs."
They rushed down the stairs and found Moody just saying good-bye to Lupin. With a surprised look he saw them coming.
"What's up?" he asked anxiously.
"Snape was here!" Harry gasped. "He – he put a book in the shelf up-stairs that only he could have had." As far as possible Harry tried to avoid going into details.
Again Moody and Lupin exchanged glances.
"He could come in here whenever he wanted!" Harry exclaimed. "I mean, even we could mix the Polyjuice Potion. He wouldn't need more than that and walk in here, being anyone he wants to be."
"Nonsense!" Moody snarled. "You shouldn't think us that incautious. There are a lot of defensive charms around this house. One of them is against Polyjuice Transfiguration."
"He might have gotten in here shortly after fleeing Hogwarts," Harry suggested. "Nobody here could have immediately been informed about what had happened."
"It's six weeks ago that he last came here," Moody concluded. "At that time he only brought a stock of Wolfsbane Potion for Remus and left. Don't think he spoke more than three words."
He raised his hip flask in greeting, apparently wanting another swallow from it and stalked to the front door on his wooden leg. "See you tomorrow. Have to go now!"
The door slammed shut.
"Let's have dinner," Ron suggested.
"Good idea," Hermione agreed. "We've got a birthday cake down in the kitchen."
"You're not taking it seriously enough!" Harry said.
"You heard what Moody said," Ron called on his way down the stairs. "And he's really a paranoiac."
In the kitchen, a vault of coarse stone which didn't seem to have changed, they found Tonks who was literally beaming when she saw Lupin.
"I would nearly have gone upstairs to see what happened to you," she said, standing up from the table where she had been brooding over a roll of parchment. She put an arm around Lupin who pulled her close, smiling.
They all sat around the table and had finished their first piece of cake when Hermione said something that had been on her mind all day. "Harry, you will return to Hogwarts with us, won't you?"
At that moment the pleasantly drowsy feeling had gone. Harry choked at a mouthful of cake.
"Was that really in question?" Lupin asked calmly.
"Yes, and it still is," Harry answered edgily. "I – I can't explain that in detail now and I still have to think about it."
"Honestly, you've had weeks to think about it!"
Harry looked at Ron and was ready for an angry reply. He stayed silent though on seeing the fear in Ron's face: fear that his best friend was being serious about leaving school a year before final examinations.
What had he been doing these past weeks? Spent the time lying on his bed, staring into space. As queer as it seemed, he hadn't been thinking about the future. Now everything returned to his mind and there was the need to make decisions. And all that with a piece of treacle cake sticking in his throat.
"I – I'll go to Godric's Hollow first of all," was what he was surprised to hear himself say. Apparently his decision had formed even without him thinking about it. "I'll just have to see what will follow then."
"Godric's Hollow?" Tonks asked.
"We'll join you," Ron and Hermione both said.
"No," Harry replied. "I mean – please don't be angry at me – I know you want to help me and – but I have to do that on my own."
On seeing their angry faces he felt helpless. They were hurt and he couldn't really blame them. "We'll talk about everything afterwards!" he insisted.
"When do you want to go there?" Hermione asked wryly.
"Tomorrow."
"Bill's wedding will be the day after," Ron interjected.
"I'll try to be on time!"
"Harry, you know, you'll have to bear my company in any case, don't you? You heard what Moody said. And I take that very seriously," Lupin quietly remarked.
oooOOOooo
Some hours later Harry was on his own, sitting in front of the fire place in his new drawing room. He was unhappy because the day had ended on a discordant note. Especially Ron and Hermione had made such a great effort to make his birthday a pleasant day. In the end they had sat together in a sullen mood for a while before they parted somewhat intransigently to the guest rooms in the other wing for the night.
The warm and slightly stale night air of London came in by the opened balcony doors. Harry found it strange to be sitting in the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix and hear the London traffic noise. A car horn was blown so that he didn't immediately hear the knock on his door.
"Harry, are you still up?" It was Lupin who entered the drawing room hesitantly.
"Come in!"
"Harry, you don't exactly look happy," Lupin said while taking a seat opposite to Harry.
"They all tried so hard to give me a good time, to cheer us all up. But it doesn't work. Everything is just too awful." And I'm not sure they feel the same way about it, Harry thought. His impression was that Lupin's emotion was similar to his own. "I don't want to endanger them any further! The thought of it makes me sick – anyone who gets too close to me could be the next victim!"
"But you should let them take their own decisions and then accept these. You need your friends, Harry."
For a moment Harry thought Dumbledore had spoken to him.
"I have to kill Voldemort."
Now it was said. Lupin didn't seem surprised.
"And before that, I have to find a number of – things and destroy them. I needn't try to find Voldemort otherwise."
"I assume you're talking about Horcruxes?"
Harry was too tired to be astonished. He simply nodded.
Lupin gave him a long, compassionate look. "Despite that, you should return to Hogwarts. It's your home. And there are some useful things you could learn. Mainly Occlumency – as I would like to remind you again."
"I suppose, I'll never be good at that," Harry grumbled. "And what use would it be against him; he knows what I want anyway."
"You shouldn't solely concentrate on Voldemort, Harry, do you understand? That's exactly what he wants. He wants us to see only the darkness. The Dementors will have an easy job if we forget what makes our lives worth while," Lupin said.
"Well, the thing is – I'm so angry! I want him to pay for it! I want to see him suffer!"
"That's understandable. Voldemort –"
"I don't mean him, at least not only him. I mean – Snape!" Harry spit the name out and unconsciously clenched his fists.
Lupin looked at him and Harry thought that he looked very tired.
"Harry –"
"No! Don't even start to try finding any kind of explanations for what he did! I don't want to hear them! He's a murderer and a traitor! He betrayed my parents, provoked Sirius to the point that he ran toward his own death, and Dumbledore – Dumbledore –" He couldn't speak anymore. His mind returned to Snape's face, staring at Dumbledore as he helplessly rested against the wall. His face showed only hatred and bitterness before he threw his Avada Kedavra at Dumbledore, the only one who had completely trusted him. There was no forgiving that.
Lupin, sitting in his arm chair, remained silent for a while. Then he took another helpless try. "I don't understand it either, Harry, I have to admit that. Maybe I was mistaken about Severus. Something must have happened to him that let – this part of him prevail again."
"I never trusted him! He always hated me, from the very first moment. Every one of his actions was ambiguous. How could Dumbledore have trusted him? Why? Why was it possible that Dumbledore was so deceived? He could still be alive!" Angrily he brushed away his tears.
"Dumbledore knew Snape so much longer than you know him, Harry," Lupin gently said. "Don't you think that he knew more about him than you can imagine?"
"Why aren't you furious?" Harry suddenly asked when he had regained his speech. "Why don't you hate him?"
"Because hate will not bring Albus Dumbledore back to life. Nothing can. I'm convinced that his death served a purpose. That is what we have to look for, Harry. It's dangerous to be lost in hatred; there's nothing more dangerous in times like these. Hatred blinds you and makes you careless. It deprives you of the joy of living. Then the dark side has another victim." Lupin slowly got up and stretched. "It's very late. And we want to be up early if I got you right. We should get some sleep."
Harry nodded. But he still remained seated for some time after Lupin had gone back down stairs.
When he finally dropped on his bed in the room next door, his last thought was that he had forgotten something.