electrical and electronic subjects

2008-12-28T17:47:00.001-08:00

Chapter Two
In Memorandum
Harry was bleeding. Clutching his right hand in his left and swearing under his
breath, he shouldered open his bedroom door. There was a crunch of breaking china. He
had trodden on a cup of cold tea that had been sitting on the floor outside his bedroom
door.
"What the --?"
He looked around, the landing of number four, Privet Drive, was deserted.
Possibly the cup of tea was Dudley's idea of a clever booby trap. Keeping his bleeding
hand elevated, Harry scraped the fragments of cup together with the other hand and threw
them into the already crammed bin just visible inside his bedroom door. Then he tramped
across to the bathroom to run his finger under the tap.
It was stupid, pointless, irritating beyond belief that he still had four days left of
being unable to perform magic…but he had to admit to himself that this jagged cut in his
finger would have defeated him. He had never learned how to repair wounds, and now he
came to think of it – particularly in light of his immediate plans – this seemed a serious
flaw in his magical education. Making a mental note to ask Hermione how it was done,
he used a large wad of toilet paper to mop up as much of the tea as he could before
returning to his bedroom and slamming the door behind him.
Harry had spent the morning completely emptying his school trunk for the first
time since he had packed it six years ago. At the start of the intervening school years, he
had merely skimmed off the topmost three quarters of the contents and replaced or
updated them, leaving a layer of general debris at the bottom – old quills, desiccated
beetle eyes, single socks that no longer fit. Minutes previously, Harry had plunged his
hand into this mulch, experienced a stabbing pain in the fourth finger of his right hand,
and withdrawn it to see a lot of blood.
He now proceeded a little more cautiously. Kneeling down beside the trunk again,
he groped around in the bottom and, after retrieving an old badge that flickered feebly
between SUPPORT CEDRIC DIGGORY and POTTER STINKS, a cracked and worn-out
Sneakoscope, and a gold locket inside which a note signed R.A.B. had been hidden, he
finally discovered the sharp edge that had done the damage. He recognized it at once. It
was a two-inch-long fragment of the enchanted mirror that his dead godfather, Sirius, had
given him. Harry laid it aside and felt cautiously around the trunk for the rest, but nothing
more remained of his godfather's last gift except powdered glass, which clung to the
deepest layer of debris like glittering grit.
Harry sat up and examined the jagged piece on which he had cut himself, seeing
nothing but his own bright green eye reflected back at him. Then he placed the fragment
on top of that morning's Daily prophet, which lay unread on the bed, and attempted to
stem the sudden upsurge of bitter memories, the stabs of regret and of longing the
discovery of the broken mirror had occasioned, by attacking the rest of the rubbish in the
trunk.
It took another hour to empty it completely, throw away the useless items, and
sort the remainder in piles according to whether or not he would need them from now on.
His school and Quidditch robes, cauldron, parchment, quills, and most of his textbooks
were piled in a corner, to be left behind. He wondered what his aunt and uncle would do
with them; burn them in the dead of night, probably, as if they were evidence of some
dreadful crime. His Muggle clothing, Invisibility Cloak, potion-making kit, certain books,
the photograph album Hagrid had once given him, a stack of letters, and his wand had
been repacked into an old rucksack. In a front pocket were the Marauder's Map and the
locket with the note signed R.A.B. inside it. The locket was accorded this place of honor
not because it was valuable – in all usual senses it was worthless – but because of what it
had cost to attain it.
This left a sizable stack of newspapers sitting on his desk beside his snowy owl,
Hedwig: one for each of the days Harry had spent at Privet Drive this summer.
He got up off the floor, stretched, and moved across to his desk. Hedwig made no
movement as he began to flick through newspapers, throwing them into the rubbish pile
one by one. The owl was asleep or else faking; she was angry with Harry about the
limited amount of time she was allowed out of her cage at the moment.
As he neared the bottom of the pile of newspapers, Harry slowed down, searching
for one particular issue that he knew had arrived shortly after he had returned to Privet
Drive for the summer; he remembered that there had been a small mention on the front
about the resignation of Charity Burbage, the Muggle Studies teacher at Hogwarts. At
last he found it. Turning to page ten, he sank into his desk chair and reread the article he
had been looking for.
ALBUS DUMBLEDORE REMEMBERED
By Elphias Doge
I met Albus Dumbledore at the age of eleven, on our first day at Hogwarts. Our
mutual attraction was undoubtedly due to the fact that we both felt ourselves to be
outsiders. I had contracted dragon pox shortly before arriving at school, and while
I was no longer contagious, my pock-marked visage and greenish hue did not
encourage many to approach me. For his part, Albus had arrived at Hogwarts
under the burden of unwanted notoriety. Scarcely a year previously, his father,
Percival, had been convicted of a savage and well-publicized attack upon three
young Muggles.
Albus never attempted to deny that his father (who was to die in Azkaban) had
committed this crime; on the contrary, when I plucked up courage to ask him, he
assured me that he knew his father to be guilty. Beyond that, Dumbledore refused
to speak of the sad business, though many attempted to make him do so. Some,
indeed, were disposed to praise his father's action and assumed that Albus too was
a Muggle-hater. They could not have been more mistaken: As anybody who knew
Albus would attest, he never revealed the remotest anti-Muggle tendency. Indeed,
his determined support for Muggle rights gained him many enemies in subsequent
years.
In a matter of months, however, Albus's own fame had begun to eclipse that
of his father. By the end of his first year he would never again be known as the
son of a Muggle-hater, but as nothing more or less than the most brilliant student
ever seen at the school. Those of us who were privileged to be his friends
benefited from his example, not to mention his help and encouragement, with
which he was always generous. He confessed to me later in life that he knew even
then that his greatest pleasure lay in teaching.
He not only won every prize of note that the school offered, he was soon in
regular correspondence with the most notable magical names of the day, including
Nicolas Flamel, the celebrated alchemist; Bathilda Bagshot, the noted historian;
and Adalbert Waffling, the magical theoretician. Several of his papers found their
way into learned publications such as Transfiguration Today, Challenges in
Charming, and The Practical Potioneer. Dumbledore's future career seemed
likely to be meteoric, and the only question that remained was when he would
become Minister of Magic. Though it was often predicted in later years that he
was on the point of taking the job, however, he never had Ministerial ambitions.
Three years after we had started at Hogwarts, Albus's brother, Aberforth,
arrived at school. They were not alike: Aberforth was never bookish and, unlike
Albus, preferred to settle arguments by dueling rather than through reasoned
discussion. However, it is quite wrong to suggest, as some have, that the brothers
were not friends. They rubbed along as comfortably as two such different boys
could do. In fairness to Aberforth, it must be admitted that living in Albus's
shadow cannot have been an altogether comfortable experience. Being continually
outshone was an occupational hazard of being his friend and cannot have been
any more pleasurable as a brother. When Albus and I left Hogwarts we intended
to take the then-traditional tour of the world together, visiting and observing
foreign wizards, before pursuing our separate careers. However, tragedy
intervened. On the very eve of our trip, Albus's mother, Kendra, died, leaving
Albus the head, and sole breadwinner, of the family. I postponed my departure
long enough to pay my respects at Kendra's funeral, then left for what was now to
be a solitary journey. With a younger brother and sister to care for, and little gold
left to them, there could no longer be any question of Albus accompanying me.
That was the period of our lives when we had least contact. I wrote to Albus,
describing, perhaps insensitively, the wonders of my journey, from narrow
escapes from chimaeras in Greece to the experiments of the Egyptian alchemists.
His letters told me little of his day-to-day life, which I guessed to be frustratingly
dull for such a brilliant wizard. Immersed in my own experiences, it was with
horror that I heard, toward the end of my year's travels, that another tragedy had
struck the Dumbledores: the death of his sister, Ariana.
Though Ariana had been in poor health for a long time, the blow, coming so
soon after the loss of their mother, had a profound effect on both of her brothers.
All those closest to Albus – and I count myself one of that lucky number – agree
that Ariana's death, and Albus's feeling of personal responsibility for it (though, of
course, he was guiltless), left their mark upon him forevermore.
I returned home to find a young man who had experienced a much older
person's suffering. Albus was more reserved than before, and much less lighthearted.
To add to his misery, the loss of Ariana had led, not to a renewed
closeness between Albus and Aberforth, but to an estrangement. (In time this
would lift – in later years they reestablished, if not a close relationship, then
certainly a cordial one.) However, he rarely spoke of his parents or of Ariana from
then on, and his friends learned not to mention them.
Other quills will describe the triumphs of the following years. Dumbledore's
innumerable contributions to the store of Wizarding knowledge, including his
discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, will benefit generations to come,
as will the wisdom he displayed in the many judgments while Chief Warlock of
the Wizengamot. They say, still, that no Wizarding duel ever matched that
between Dumbledore and Grindelwald in 1945. Those who witnessed it have
written of the terror and the awe they felt as they watched these two extraordinary
wizards to battle. Dumbledore's triumph, and its consequences for the Wizarding
world, are considered a turning point in magical history to match the introduction
of the International Statute of Secrecy or the downfall of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-
Named.
Albus Dumbledore was never proud or vain; he could find something to value
in anyone, however apparently insignificant or wretched, and I believe that his
early losses endowed him with great humanity and sympathy. I shall miss his
friendship more than I can say, but my loss is nothing compared to the Wizarding
world's. That he was the most inspiring and best loved of all Hogwarts
headmasters cannot be in question. He died as he lived: working always for the
greater good and, to his last hour, as willing to stretch out a hand to a small boy
with dragon pox as he was on the day I met him.
Harry finished reading, but continued to gaze at the picture accompanying the
obituary. Dumbledore was wearing his familiar, kindly smile, but as he peered over the
top of his half-moon spectacles, he gave the impression, even in newsprint, of X-raying
Harry, whose sadness mingled with a sense of humiliation.
He had thought he knew Dumbledore quite well, but ever since reading this
obituary he had been forced to recognize that he had barely known him at all. Never once
had he imagined Dumbledore's childhood or youth; it was as though he had sprung into
being as Harry had known him, venerable and silver-haired and old. The idea of a
teenage Dumbledore was simply odd, like trying to imagine a stupid Hermione or a
friendly Blast-Ended Skrewt.
He had never thought to ask Dumbledore about his past. No doubt it would have
felt strange, impertinent even, but after all it had been common knowledge that
Dumbledore had taken part in that legendary duel with Grindelwald, and Harry had not
thought to ask Dumbledore what that had been like, nor about any of his other famous
achievements. No, they had always discussed Harry, Harry's past, Harry's future, Harry's
plans… and it seemed to Harry now, despite the fact that his future was so dangerous and
so uncertain, that he had missed irreplaceable opportunities when he had failed to ask
Dumbledore more about himself, even though the only personal question he had ever
asked his headmaster was also the only one he suspected that Dumbledore had not
answered honestly:
"What do you see when you look in the mirror?"
"I? I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks."
After several minutes' thought, Harry tore the obituary out of the Prophet, folded
it carefully, and tucked it inside the first volume of Practical Defensive Magic and its
Use against the Dark Arts. Then he threw the rest of the newspaper onto the rubbish pile
and turned to face the room. It was much tidier. The only things left out of place were
today's Daily Prophet, still lying on the bed, and on top of it, the piece of broken mirror.
Harry moved across the room, slid the mirror fragment off today's Prophet, and
unfolded the newspaper. He had merely glanced at the headline when he had taken the
rolled-up paper from the delivery owl early that morning and thrown it aside, after noting
that it said nothing about Voldemort. Harry was sure that the Ministry was leaning on the
Prophet to suppress news about Voldemort. It was only now, therefore, that he saw what
he had missed.
Across the bottom half of the front page a smaller headline was set over a picture
of Dumbledore striding along, looking harried:
DUMBLEDORE – THE TRUTH AT LAST?
Coming next week, the shocking story of the flawed genius considered by many
to be the greatest wizard of his generation. Striping away the popular image of
serene, silver-bearded wisdom, Rita Skeeter reveals the disturbed childhood, the
lawless youth, the life-long feuds, and the guilty secrets that Dumbledore carried
to his grave, WHY was the man tipped to be the Minister of Magic content to
remain a mere headmaster? WHAT was the real purpose of the secret
organization known as the Order of the Phoenix? HOW did Dumbledore really
meet his end?
The answers to these and many more questions are explored in the
explosive new biography, The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore, by Rita Skeeter,
exclusively interviewed by Berry Braithwaite, page 13, inside.
Harry ripped open the paper and found page thirteen. The article was topped with
a picture showing another familiar face: a woman wearing jeweled glasses with
elaborately curled blonde hair, her teeth bared in what was clearly supposed to be a
winning smile, wiggling her fingers up at him. Doing his best to ignore this nauseating
image, Harry read on.
In person, Rita Skeeter is much warmer and softer than her famously
ferocious quill-portraits might suggest. Greeting me in the hallway of her cozy
home, she leads me straight into the kitchen for a cup of tea, a slice of pound cake
and, it goes without saying, a steaming vat of freshest gossip.
"Well, of course, Dumbledore is a biographer's dream," says Skeeter. "Such a
long, full life. I'm sure my book will be the first of very, very many."
Skeeter was certainly quick off the mark. Her nine-hundred-page book was
completed in a mere four weeks after Dumbledore's mysterious death in June. I
ask her how she managed this superfast feat.
"Oh, when you've been a journalist as long as I have, working to a deadline is
second nature. I knew that the Wizarding world was clamoring for the full story
and I wanted to be the first to meet that need."
I mention the recent, widely publicized remarks of Elphias Doge, Special
Advisor to the Wizengamot and longstanding friend of Albus Dumbledore's, that
"Skeeter's book contains less fact than a Chocolate Frog card."
Skeeter throws back her head and laughs.
"Darling Dodgy! I remember interviewing him a few years back about
merpeople rights, bless him. Completely gaga, seemed to think we were sitting at
the bottom of Lake Windermere, kept telling me to watch out for trout."
And yet Elphias Doge's accusations of inaccuracy have been echoed in many
places. Does Skeeter really feel that four short weeks have been enough to gain a
full picture of Dumbledore's long and extraordinary life?
"Oh, my dear," beams Skeeter, rapping me affectionately across the knuckles,
"you know as well as I do how much information can be generated by a fat bag of
Galleons, a refusal to hear the word 'no,' and a nice sharp Quick-Quotes Quill!
People were queuing to dish the dirt on Dumbledore anyway. Not everyone
thought he was so wonderful, you know – he trod on an awful lot of important
toes. But old Dodgy Doge can get off his high hippogriff, because I've had access
to a source most journalists would swap their wands for, one who has never
spoken in public before and who was close to Dumbledore during the most
turbulent and disturbing phase of his youth."
The advance publicity for Skeeter's biography has certainly suggested that
there will be shocks in store for those who believe Dumbledore to have led a
blameless life. What were the biggest surprises she uncovered, I ask?
"Now, come off it. Betty, I'm not giving away all the highlights before
anybody's bought the book!" laughs Skeeter. "But I can promise that anybody
who still thinks Dumbledore was white as his beard is in for a rude awakening!
Let's just say that nobody hearing him rage against You-Know-Who would have
dreamed that he dabbled in the Dark Arts himself in his youth! And for a wizard
who spent his later years pleading for tolerance, he wasn't exactly broad-minded
when he was younger! Yes, Albus Dumbledore had an extremely murky past, not
to mention that very fishy family, which he worked so hard to keep hushed up."
I ask whether Skeeter is referring to Dumbledore's brother, Aberforth, whose
conviction by the Wizengamot for misuse of magic caused a minor scandal fifteen
years ago.
"Oh, Aberforth is just the tip of the dung heap,” laughs Skeeter. "No, no, I'm
talking about much worse than a brother with a fondness for fiddling about with
goats, worse even than the Muggle-maiming father – Dumbledore couldn't keep
either of them quiet anyway, they were both charged by the Wizengamot. No, it's
the mother and the sister that intrigued me, and a little digging uncovered a
positive nest of nastiness – but, as I say, you'll have to wait for chapters nine to
twelve for full details. All I can say now is, it's no wonder Dumbledore never
talked about how his nose got broken."
Family skeletons notwithstanding, does Skeeter deny the brilliance that led to
Dumbledore's many magical discoveries?
"He had brains," she concedes, "although many now question whether he
could really take full credit for all of his supposed achievements. As I reveal in
chapter sixteen, Ivor Dillonsby claims he had already discovered eight uses of
dragon's blood when Dumbledore 'borrowed' his papers."
But the importance of some of Dumbledore's achievements cannot, I venture,
be denied. What of his famous defeat of Grindelwald?
"Oh, now, I'm glad you mentioned Grindelwald," says Skeeter with such a
tantalizing smile. "I'm afraid those who go dewy-eyed over Dumbledore's
spectacular victory must brace themselves for a bombshell – or perhaps a
Dungbomb. Very dirty business indeed. All I'll say is, don't be so sure that there
really was a spectacular duel of legend. After they've read my book, people may
be forced to conclude that Grindelwald simply conjured a white handkerchief
from the end of his wand and came quietly!"
Skeeter refuses to give any more away on this intriguing subject, so we turn
instead to the relationship that will undoubtedly fascinate her readers more than
any other.
"Oh yes," says Skeeter, nodding briskly, "I devote an entire chapter to the
whole Potter-Dumbledore relationship. It's been called unhealthy, even sinister.
Again, your readers will have to buy my book for the whole story, but there is no
question that Dumbledore took an unnatural interest in Potter from the word go.
Whether that was really in the boy's best interests – well, we'll see. It's certainly
an open secret that Potter has had a most troubled adolescence."
I ask whether Skeeter is still in touch with Harry Potter, whom she so
famously interviewed last year: a breakthrough piece in which Potter spoke
exclusively of his conviction that You-Know-Who had returned.
"Oh, yes, we've developed a closer bond," says Skeeter. "Poor Potter has few
real friends, and we met at one of the most testing moments of his life – the
Triwizard Tournament. I am probably one of the only people alive who can say
that they know the real Harry Potter."
Which leads us neatly to the many rumors still circulating about Dumbledore's
final hours. Does Skeeter believe that Potter was there when Dumbledore died?
"Well, I don't want to say too much – it's all in the book – but eyewitnesses
inside Hogwarts castle saw Potter running away from the scene moments after
Dumbledore fell, jumped, or was pushed. Potter later gave evidence against
Severus Snape, a man against whom he has a notorious grudge. Is everything as it
seems? That is for the Wizarding community to decide – once they've read my
book."
On that intriguing note, I take my leave. There can be no doubt that Skeeter
has quilled an instant bestseller. Dumbledore's legion of admirers, meanwhile,
may well be trembling at what is soon to emerge about their hero.
Harry reached the bottom of the article, but continued to stare blankly at the page.
Revulsion and fury rose in him like vomit; he balled up the newspaper and threw it, with
all his force, at the wall, where it joined the rest of the rubbish heaped around his
overflowing bin.
He began to stride blindly around the room, opening empty drawers and picking
up books only to replace them on the same piles, barely conscious of what he was doing,
as random phrases from Rita's article echoed in his head: An entire chapter to the whole
Potter-Dumbledore relationship ... It's been called unhealthy, even sinister ... He dabbled
in the Dark Arts himself in his youth ... I've had access to a source most journalists would
swap their wands for...
"Lies!" Harry bellowed, and through the window he saw the next-door neighbor,
who had paused to restart his lawn mower, look up nervously.
Harry sat down hard on the bed. The broken bit of mirror danced away from him;
he picked it up and turned it over in his fingers, thinking, thinking of Dumbledore and the
lies with which Rita Skeeter was defaming him ...
A flash of brightest blue. Harry froze, his cut finger slipping on the jagged edge of
the mirror again. He had imagined it, he must have done. He glanced over his shoulder,
but the wall was a sickly peach color of Aunt Petunia's choosing: There was nothing blue
there for the mirror to reflect. He peered into the mirror fragment again, and saw nothing
but his own bright green eye looking back at him.
He had imagined it, there was no other explanation; imagined it, because he had
been thinking of his dead headmaster. If anything was certain, it was that the bright blue
eyes of Albus Dumbledore would never pierce him again.
Chapter Three
The Dursleys Departing
The sound of the front door slamming echoed up the stairs and a voice roared,
“Oh! You!”
Sixteen years of being addressed thus left Harry in no doubt when his uncle was
calling, nevertheless, he did not immediately respond. He was still at the narrow fragment
in which, for a split second, he had thought he saw Dumbledore’s eye. It was not until his
uncle bellowed, “BOY!” that Harry got slowly out of bed and headed for the bedroom
door, pausing to add the piece of broken mirror to the rucksack filled with things he
would be taking with him.
“You took you time!” roared Vernon Dursley when Harry appeared at the top of
the stairs, “Get down here. I want a word!”
Harry strolled downstairs, his hands deep in his pants pockets. When he searched
the living room he found all three Dursleys. They were dressed for packing; Uncle
Vernon in an old ripped-up jacket and Dudley, Harry’s, large, blond, muscular cousin, in
his leather jacket.
“Yes?” asked Harry.
“Sit down!” said Uncle Vernon. Harry raised his eyebrows. “Please!” added
Uncle Vernon, wincing slightly as though the word was sharp in his throat.
Harry sat. He though he knew what was coming. His uncle began to pace up and down,
Aunt Petunia and Dudley, following his movement with anxious expressions. Finally, his
large purple face crumpled with concentration. Uncle Vernon stopped in front of Harry
and spoke.
"I've changed my mind,” he said.
"What a surprise," said Harry.
"Don't you take that tone—" began Aunt Petunia in a shrill voice, but Vernon
Dursley waved her down
"It's all a lot of claptrap,” said Uncle Vernon, glaring at Harry with piggy little
eyes. "I've decided I don't believe a word of it. We’re staying put, we’re not going
anywhere.”
Harry looked up at his uncle and felt a mixture of exasperation and amusement.
Vernon Dursley had been changing his mind every twenty four hours for the past four
weeks, packing and unpacking and repacking the car with every change of heart. Harry’s
favorite moment had been the one when Uncle Vernon, unaware the Dudley had added
his dumbbells to his case since the last time it been repacked, had attempted to hoist it
back into the boot and collapsed with a yelp of pain and much swearing.
“According to you,” Vernon Dursley said, now resuming his pacing up and down
the living room, “we – Petunia, Dudley, and I – are in danger. From – from –“
“Some of ‘my lot’ right?” said Harry
“Well I don’t believe it,” repeated Uncle Vernon, coming to a halt in front of
Harry again. "I was awake half the night thinking it all over, and I believe it's a plot to get
the house."
"The house?" repeated Harry. "What house?"
"This house!" shrieked Uncle Vernon, the vein his forehead starting to pulse.
"Our

2008-12-28T17:42:00.001-08:00

Chapter One
The Dark Lord Ascending
The two men appeared out of nowhere, a few yards apart in the narrow, moonlit
lane. For a second they stood quite still, wands directed at each other's chests; then,
recognizing each other, they stowed their wands beneath their cloaks and started walking
briskly in the same direction.
"News?" asked the taller of the two.
"The best," replied Severus Snape.
The lane was bordered on the left by wild, low-growing brambles, on the right by a high,
neatly manicured hedge. The men's long cloaks flapped around their ankles as they
marched.
"Thought I might be late," said Yaxley, his blunt features sliding in and out of sight as
the branches of overhanging trees broke the moonlight. "It was a little trickier than I
expected. But I hope he will be satisfied. You sound confident that your reception will be
good?"
Snape nodded, but did not elaborate. They turned right, into a wide driveway that led
off the lane. The high hedge curved into them, running off into the distance beyond the
pair of imposing wrought-iron gates barring the men’s way. Neither of them broke step:
In silence both raised their left arms in a kind of salute and passed straight through, as
though the dark metal was smoke.
The yew hedges muffled the sound of the men’s footsteps. There was a rustle
somewhere to their right: Yaxley drew his wand again pointing it over his companion’s
head, but the source of the noise proved to be nothing more than a pure-white peacock,
strutting majestically along the top of the hedge.
“He always did himself well, Lucius. Peacocks …” Yaxley thrust his wand back
under his cloak with a snort.
A handsome manor house grew out of the darkness at the end of the straight drive,
lights glinting in the diamond paned downstairs windows. Somewhere in the dark garden
beyond the hedge a fountain was playing. Gravel crackled beneath their feet as Snape and
Yaxley sped toward the front door, which swung inward at their approach, though
nobody had visibly opened it.
The hallway was large, dimly lit, and sumptuously decorated, with a magnificent
carpet covering most of the stone floor. The eyes of the pale-faced portraits on the wall
followed Snape and Yaxley as they strode past. The two men halted at a heavy wooden
door leading into the next room, hesitated for the space of a heartbeat, then Snape turned
the bronze handle.
The drawing room was full of silent people, sitting at a long and ornate table. The
room’s usual furniture had been pushed carelessly up against the walls. Illumination
came from a roaring fire beneath a handsome marble mantelpiece surmounted by a gilded
mirror. Snape and Yaxley lingered for a moment on the threshold. As their eyes grew
accustomed to the lack of light, they were drawn upward to the strangest feature of the
scene: an apparently unconscious human figure hanging upside down over the table,
revolving slowly as if suspended by an invisible rope, and reflected in the mirror and in
the bare, polished surface of the table below. None of the people seated underneath this
singular sight were looking at it except for a pale young man sitting almost directly below
it. He seemed unable to prevent himself from glancing upward every minute or so.
“Yaxley. Snape,” said a high, clear voice from the head of the table. “You are
very nearly late.”
The speaker was seated directly in front of the fireplace, so that it was difficult, at
first, for the new arrivals to make out more than his silhouette. As they drew nearer,
however, his face shone through the gloom, hairless, snakelike, with slits for nostrils and
gleaming red eyes whose pupils were vertical. He was so pale that he seemed to emit a
pearly glow.
“Severus, here,” said Voldemort, indicating the seat on his immediate right.
“Yaxley – beside Dolohov.”
The two men took their allotted places. Most of the eyes around the table
followed Snape, and it was to him that Voldemort spoke first.
“So?”
“My Lord, the Order of the Phoenix intends to move Harry Potter from his current
place of safety on Saturday next, at nightfall.”
The interest around the table sharpened palpably: Some stiffened, others fidgeted,
all gazing at Snape and Voldemort.
“Saturday … at nightfall,” repeated Voldemort. His red eyes fastened upon
Snape’s black ones with such intensity that some of the watchers looked away, apparently
fearful that they themselves would be scorched by the ferocity of the gaze. Snape,
however, looked calmly back into Voldemort’s face and, after a moment or two,
Voldemort’s lipless mouth curved into something like a smile.
“Good. Very good. And this information comes –“
“ – from the source we discussed,” said Snape.
“My Lord.”
Yaxley had leaned forward to look down the long table at Voldemort and Snape.
All faces turned to him.
“My Lord, I have heard differently.”
Yaxley waited, but Voldemort did not speak, so he went on, “Dawlish, the Auror,
let slip that Potter will not be moved until the thirtieth, the night before the boy turns
seventeen.”
Snape was smiling.
“My source told me that there are plans to lay a false trail; this must be it. No
doubt a Confundus Charm has been placed upon Dawlish. It would not be the first time;
he is known to be susceptible.”
“I assure you, my Lord, Dawlish seemed quite certain,” said Yaxley.
“If he has been Confunded, naturally he is certain,” said Snape. “I assure you,
Yaxley, the Auror Office will play no further part in the protection of Harry Potter. The
Order believes that we have infiltrated the Ministry.”
“The Order’s got one thing right, then, eh?” said a squat man sitting a short
distance from Yaxley; he gave a wheezy giggle that was echoed here and there along the
table.
Voldemort did not laugh. His gaze had wandered upward to the body revolving
slowly overhead, and he seemed to be lost in thought.
“My Lord,” Yaxley went on, “Dawlish believes an entire party of Aurors will be
used to transfer the boy –“
Voldemort held up a large white hand, and Yaxley subsided at once, watching
resentfully as Voldemort turned back to Snape.
“Where are they going to hide the boy next?”
“At the home of one of the Order,” said Snape. “The place, according to the
source, has been given every protection that the Order and Ministry together could
provide. I think that there is little chance of taking him once he is there, my Lord, unless,
of course, the Ministry has fallen before next Saturday, which might give us the
opportunity to discover and undo enough of the enchantments to break through the rest.”
“Well, Yaxley?” Voldemort called down the table, the firelight glinting strangely
in his red eyes. “Will the Ministry have fallen by next Saturday?”
Once again, all heads turned. Yaxley squared his shoulders.
“My Lord, I have good news on that score. I have – with difficulty, and after great
effort – succeeded in placing an Imperius Curse upon Pius Thicknesse.”
Many of those sitting around Yaxley looked impressed; his neighbor, Dolohov, a
man with a long, twisted face, clapped him on the back.
“It is a start,” said Voldemort. “But Thicknesse is only one man. Scrimgeour must
be surrounded by our people before I act. One failed attempt on the Minister’s life will
set me back a long way.”
“Yes – my Lord, that is true – but you know, as Head of the Department of
Magical Law Enforcement, Thicknesse has regular contact not only with the Minister
himself, but also with the Heads of all the other Ministry departments. It will, I think, be
easy now that we have such a high-ranking official under our control, to subjugate the
others, and then they can all work together to bring Scrimgeour down.”
“As long as our friend Thicknesse is not discovered before he has converted the
rest,” said Voldemort. “At any rate, it remains unlikely that the Ministry will be mine
before next Saturday. If we cannot touch the boy at his destination, then it must be done
while he travels.”
“We are at an advantage there, my Lord,” said Yaxley, who seemed determined to
receive some portion of approval. “We now have several people planted within the
Department of Magical Transport. If Potter Apparates or uses the Floo Network, we shall
know immediately.”
“He will not do either,” said Snape. “The Order is eschewing any form of
transport that is controlled or regulated by the Ministry; they mistrust everything to do
with the place.”
“All the better,” said Voldemort. “He will have to move in the open. Easier to
take, by far.”
Again, Voldemort looked up at the slowly revolving body as he went on, “I shall
attend to the boy in person. There have been too many mistakes where Harry Potter is
concerned. Some of them have been my own. That Potter lives is due more to my errors
than to his triumphs.”
The company around the table watched Voldemort apprehensively, each of them,
by his or her expression, afraid that they might be blamed for Harry Potter’s continued
existence. Voldemort, however, seemed to be speaking more to himself than to any of
them, still addressing the unconscious body above him.
“I have been careless, and so have been thwarted by luck and chance, those
wreckers of all but the best-laid plans. But I know better now. I understand those things
that I did not understand before. I must be the one to kill Harry Potter, and I shall be.”
At these words, seemingly in response to them, a sudden wail sounded, a terrible,
drawn-out cry of misery and pain. Many of those at the table looked downward, startled,
for the sound had seemed to issue from below their feet.
“Wormtail,” said Voldemort, with no change in his quiet, thoughtful tone, and
without removing his eyes from the revolving body above, “have I not spoken to you
about keeping our prisoner quiet?”
“Yes, m-my Lord,” gasped a small man halfway down the table, who had been
sitting so low in his chair that it appeared, at first glance, to be unoccupied. Now he
scrambled from his seat and scurried from the room, leaving nothing behind him but a
curious gleam of silver.
“As I was saying,” continued Voldemort, looking again at the tense faces of his
followers, “I understand better now. I shall need, for instance, to borrow a wand from one
of you before I go to kill Potter.”
The faces around him displayed nothing but shock; he might have announced that
he wanted to borrow one of their arms.
“No volunteers?” said Voldemort. “Let’s see … Lucius, I see no reason for you to
have a wand anymore.”
Lucius Malfoy looked up. His skin appeared yellowish and waxy in the firelight,
and his eyes were sunken and shadowed. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse.
“My Lord?”
“Your wand, Lucius. I require your wand.”
“I …”
Malfoy glanced sideways at his wife. She was staring straight ahead, quite as pale
as he was, her long blonde hair hanging down her back, but beneath the table her slim
fingers closed briefly on his wrist. At her touch, Malfoy put his hand into his robes,
withdrew a wand, and passed it along to Voldemort, who held it up in front of his red
eyes, examining it closely.
“What is it?”
“Elm, my Lord,” whispered Malfoy.
“And the core?”
“Dragon – dragon heartstring.”
“Good,” said Voldemort. He drew out his wand and compared the lengths. Lucius
Malfoy made an involuntary movement; for a fraction of a second, it seemed he expected
to receive Voldemort’s wand in exchange for his own. The gesture was not missed by
Voldemort, whose eyes widened maliciously.
“Give you my wand, Lucius? My wand?”
Some of the throng sniggered.
“I have given you your liberty, Lucius, is that not enough for you? But I have
noticed that you and your family seem less than happy of late … What is it about my
presence in your home that displaces you, Lucius?”
“Nothing – nothing, my Lord!”
“Such lies Lucius … “
The soft voice seemed to hiss on even after the cruel mouth had stopped moving.
One or two of the wizards barely repressed a shudder as the hissing grew louder;
something heavy could be heard sliding across the floor beneath the table.
The huge snake emerged to climb slowly up Voldemort’s chair. It rose, seemingly
endlessly, and came to rest across Voldemort’s shoulders: its neck the thickness of a
man’s thigh; its eyes, with their vertical slits for pupils, unblinking. Voldemort stroked
the creature absently with long thin fingers, still looking at Lucius Malfoy.
“Why do the Malfoys look so unhappy with their lot? Is my return, my rise to
power, not the very thing they professed to desire for so many years?”
“Of course, my Lord,” said Lucius Malfoy. His hand shook as he wiped sweat
from his upper lip. “We did desire it – we do.”
To Malfoy’s left, his wife made an odd, stiff nod, her eyes averted from
Voldemort and the snake. To his right, his son, Draco, who had been gazing up at the
inert body overhead, glanced quickly at Voldemort and away again, terrified to make eye
contact.
“My Lord,” said a dark woman halfway down the table, her voice constricted with
emotion, “it is an honor to have you here, in our family’s house. There can be no higher
pleasure.”
She sat beside her sister, as unlike her in looks, with her dark hair and heavily
lidded eyes, as she was in bearing and demeanor; where Narcissa sat rigid and impassive,
Bellatrix leaned toward Voldemort, for mere words could not demonstrate her longing for
closeness.
“No higher pleasure,” repeated Voldemort, his head tilted a little to one side as he
considered Bellatrix. “That means a great deal, Bellatrix, from you.”
Her face flooded with color; her eyes welled with tears of delight.
“My Lord knows I speak nothing but the truth!”
“No higher pleasure … even compared with the happy event that, I hear, has
taken place in your family this week?”
She stared at him, her lips parted, evidently confused.
“I don’t know what you mean, my Lord.”
“I’m talking about your niece, Bellatrix. And yours, Lucius and Narcissa. She has
just married the werewolf, Remus Lupin. You must be so proud.”
There was an eruption of jeering laughter from around the table. Many leaned
forward to exchange gleeful looks; a few thumped the table with their fists. The giant
snake, disliking the disturbance, opened its mouth wide and hissed angrily, but the Death
Eaters did not hear it, so jubilant were they at Bellatrix and the Malfoys’ humiliation.
Bellatrix’s face, so recently flushed wit happiness, had turned an ugly, blotchy red.
“She is no niece of ours, my Lord,” she cried over the outpouring of mirth. “We –
Narcissa and I – have never set eyes on our sister since she married the Mudblood. This
brat has nothing to do with either of us, nor any beast she marries.”
“What say you, Draco?” asked Voldemort, and though his voice was quiet, it
carried clearly through the catcalls and jeers. “Will you babysit the cubs?”
The hilarity mounted; Draco Malfoy looked in terror at his father, who was
staring down into his own lap, then caught his mother’s eye. She shook her head almost
imperceptibly, then resumed her own deadpan stare at the opposite wall.
“Enough,” said Voldemort, stroking the angry snake. “Enough.”
And the laughter died at once.
“Many of our oldest family trees become a little diseased over time,” he said as
Bellatrix gazed at him, breathless and imploring, “You must prune yours, must you not,
to keep it healthy? Cut away those parts that threaten the health of the rest.”
“Yes, my Lord,” whispered Bellatrix, and her eyes swam with tears of gratitude
again. “At the first chance!”
“You shall have it,” said Voldemort. “And in your family, so in the world … we
shall cut away the canker that infects us until only those of the true blood remain …”
Voldemort raised Lucius Malfoy’s wand, pointed it directly at the slowly
revolving figure suspended over the table, and gave it a tiny flick. The figure came to life
with a groan and began to struggle against invisible bonds.
“Do you recognize our guest, Severus?” asked Voldemort.
Snape raised his eyes to the upside down face. All of the Death Eaters were
looking up at the captive now, as though they had been given permission to show
curiosity. As she revolved to face the firelight, the woman said in a cracked and terrified
voice, “Severus! Help me!”
“Ah, yes,” said Snape as the prisoner turned slowly away again.
“And you, Draco?” asked Voldemort, stroking the snake’s snout with his wandfree
hand. Draco shook his head jerkily. Now that the woman had woken, he seemed
unable to look at her anymore.
“But you would not have taken her classes,” said Voldemort. “For those of you
who do not know, we are joined here tonight by Charity Burbage who, until recently,
taught at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”
There were small noises of comprehension around the table. A broad, hunched
woman with pointed teeth cackled.
“Yes … Professor Burbage taught the children of witches and wizards all about
Muggles … how they are not so different from us … “
One of the Death Eaters spat on the floor. Charity Burbage revolved to face Snape
again.
“Severus … please … please … “
“Silence,” said Voldemort, with another twitch of Malfoy’s wand, and Charity fell
silent as if gagged. “Not content with corrupting and polluting the minds of Wizarding
children, last week Professor Burbage wrote an impassioned defense of Mudbloods in the
Daily Prophet. Wizards, she says, must accept these thieves of their knowledge and
magic. The dwindling of the purebloods is, says Professor Burbage, a most desirable
circumstance … She would have us all mate with Muggles … or, no doubt, werewolves
… “
Nobody laughed this time. There was no mistaking the anger and contempt in
Voldemort’s voice. For the third time, Charity Burbage revolved to face Snape. Tears
were pouring from her eyes into her hair. Snape looked back at her, quite impassive, as
she turned slowly away from him again.
“Avada Kedavra”
The flash of green light illuminated every corner of the room. Charity fell, with a
resounding crash, onto the table below, which trembled and creaked. Several of the Death
Eaters leapt back in their chairs. Draco fell out of his onto the floor.
“Dinner, Nagini,” said Voldemort softly, and the great snake swayed and slithered
from his shoulders onto the polished wood.
Chapter Two
In Memorandum
Harry was bleeding. Clutching his right hand in his left and swearing under his
breath, he shouldered open