“It’s two weeks till full moon,” Mr. Weasley reminded her quietly. “They’ve been talking to him this morning, the Healers, you know, trying to persuade him he’ll be able to lead an almost normal life. I said to him—didn’t mention names, of course—but I said I knew a werewolf personally, very nice man, who finds the condition quite easy to manage.”

  “What did he say?” asked George.

  “Said he’d give me another bite if I didn’t shut up,” said Mr. Weasley sadly. “And that woman over there,” he indicated the only other occupied bed, which was right beside the door, “won’t tell the Healers what bit her, which makes us all think it must have been something she was handling illegally. Whatever it was took a real chunk out of her leg, very nasty smell when they take off the dressings.”

  “So, you going to tell us what happened, Dad?” asked Fred, pulling his chair closer to the bed.

  “Well, you already know, don’t you?” said Mr. Weasley, with a significant smile at Harry. “It’s very simple—I’d had a very long day, dozed off, got sneaked up on and bitten.”

  “Is it in the Prophet, you being attacked?” asked Fred, indicating the newspaper Mr. Weasley had cast aside.

  “No, of course not,” said Mr. Weasley, with a slightly bitter smile, “the Ministry wouldn’t want everyone to know a dirty great serpent got—”

  “Arthur!” Mrs. Weasley warned him.

  “—got—er—me,” Mr. Weasley said hastily, though Harry was quite sure that was not what he had meant to say.

  “So where were you when it happened, Dad?” asked George.

  “That’s my business,” said Mr. Weasley, though with a small smile. He snatched up the Daily Prophet, shook it open again and said, “I was just reading about Willy Widdershins’s arrest when you arrived. You know Willy turned out to be behind those regurgitating toilets back in the summer? One of his jinxes backfired, the toilet exploded and they found him lying unconscious in the wreckage covered from head to foot in—”

  “When you say you were ‘on duty,’” Fred interrupted in a low voice, “what were you doing?”

  “You heard your father,” whispered Mrs. Weasley, “we are not discussing this here! Go on about Willy Widdershins, Arthur.”

  “Well, don’t ask me how, but he actually got off the toilet charge,” said Mr. Weasley grimly. “I can only suppose gold changed hands—”

  “You were guarding it, weren’t you?” said George quietly. “The weapon? The thing You-Know-Who’s after?”

  “George, be quiet!” snapped Mrs. Weasley.

  “Anyway,” said Mr. Weasley, in a raised voice, “this time Willy’s been caught selling biting doorknobs to Muggles and I don’t think he’ll be able to worm his way out of it because, according to this article, two Muggles have lost fingers and are now in St. Mungo’s for emergency bone re-growth and memory modification. Just think of it, Muggles in St. Mungo’s! I wonder which ward they’re in?”

  And he looked eagerly around as though hoping to see a signpost.

  “Didn’t you say You-Know-Who’s got a snake, Harry?” asked Fred, looking at his father for a reaction. “A massive one? You saw it the night he returned, didn’t you?”

  “That’s enough,” said Mrs. Weasley crossly. “Mad-Eye and Tonks are outside, Arthur, they want to come and see you. And you lot can wait outside,” she added to her children and Harry. “You can come and say goodbye afterwards. Go on.”

  They trooped back into the corridor. Mad-Eye and Tonks went in and closed the door of the ward behind them. Fred raised his eyebrows.

  “Fine,” he said coolly, rummaging in his pockets, “be like that. Don’t tell us anything.”

  “Looking for these?” said George, holding out what looked like a tangle of flesh-coloured string.

  “You read my mind,” said Fred, grinning. “Let’s see if St. Mungo’s puts Imperturbable Charms on its ward doors, shall we?”

  He and George disentangled the string and separated five Extendable Ears from each other. Fred and George handed them around. Harry hesitated to take one.

  “Go on, Harry, take it! You saved Dad’s life. If anyone’s got the right to eavesdrop on him, it’s you.”

  Grinning in spite of himself, Harry took the end of the string and inserted it into his ear as the twins had done.

  “OK, go!” Fred whispered.

  The flesh-coloured strings wriggled like long skinny worms and snaked under the door. At first, Harry could hear nothing, then he jumped as he heard Tonks whispering as clearly as though she were standing right beside him.

  “…they searched the whole area but couldn’t find the snake anywhere. It just seems to have vanished after it attacked you, Arthur… but You-Know-Who can’t have expected a snake to get in, can he?”

  “I reckon he sent it as a lookout,” growled Moody, “’cause he’s not had any luck so far, has he? No, I reckon he’s trying to get a clearer picture of what he’s facing and if Arthur hadn’t been there the beast would’ve had a lot more time to look around. So, Potter says he saw it all happen?”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Weasley. She sounded rather uneasy. “You know, Dumbledore seems almost to have been waiting for Harry to see something like this.”

  “Yeah, well,” said Moody, “there’s something funny about the Potter kid, we all know that.”

  “Dumbledore seemed worried about Harry when I spoke to him this morning,” whispered Mrs. Weasley.

  “Course he’s worried,” growled Moody. “The boy’s seeing things from inside You-Know-Who’s snake. Obviously, Potter doesn’t realise what that means, but if You-Know-Who’s possessing him—”

  Harry pulled the Extendable Ear out of his own, his heart hammering very fast and heat rushing up his face. He looked around at the others. They were all staring at him, the strings still trailing from their ears, looking suddenly fearful.

  23. CHRISTMAS ON THE CLOSED WARD

  Was this why Dumbledore would no longer meet Harry’s eyes? Did he expect to see Voldemort staring out of them, afraid, perhaps, that their vivid green might turn suddenly to scarlet, with catlike slits for pupils? Harry remembered how the snakelike face of Voldemort had once forced itself out of the back of Professor Quirrell’s head and ran his hand over the back of his own, wondering what it would feel like if Voldemort burst out of his skull.

  He felt dirty, contaminated, as though he were carrying some deadly germ, unworthy to sit on the Underground train back from the hospital with innocent, clean people whose minds and bodies were free of the taint of Voldemort… he had not merely seen the snake, he had been the snake, he knew it now…

  A truly terrible thought then occurred to him, a memory bobbing to the surface of his mind, one that made his insides writhe and squirm like serpents.

  What’s he after, apart from followers?

  Stuff he can only get by stealth… like a weapon. Something he didn’t have last time.

  I’m the weapon, Harry thought, and it was as though poison were pumping through his veins, chilling him, bringing him out in a sweat as he swayed with the train through the dark tunnel. I’m the one Voldemort’s trying to use, that’s why they’ve got guards around me everywhere I go, it’s not for my protection, it’s for other people’s, only it’s not working, they can’t have someone on me all the time at Hogwarts… I did attack Mr. Weasley last night, it was me. Voldemort made me do it and he could be inside me, listening to my thoughts right now—

  “Are you all right, Harry, dear?” whispered Mrs. Weasley leaning across Ginny to speak to him as the train rattled along through its dark tunnel. “You don’t look very well. Are you feeling sick?”

  They were all watching him. He shook his head violently and stared up at an advertisement for home insurance.

  “Harry, dear, are you sure you’re all right?” said Mrs. Weasley in a worried voice, as they walked around the unkempt patch of grass in the middle of Grimmauld Place. “You look ever so pale… are you sure you slept this morning? You go upstairs to bed right now and you can have a couple of hours of sleep before dinner, all right?”

  He nodded; here was a ready-made excuse not to talk to any of the others, which was precisely what he wanted, so when she opened the front door he hurried straight past the troll’s-leg umbrella stand, up the stairs and into his and Ron’s bedroom.

  Here, he began to pace up and down, past the two beds and Phineas Nigellus’s empty picture frame, his brain teeming and seething with questions and ever more dreadful ideas.

  How had he become a snake? Perhaps he was an Animagus… no, he couldn’t be, he would know… perhaps Voldemort was an Animagus… yes, thought Harry, that would fit, he would turn into a snake of course… and when he’s possessing me, then we both transform… that still doesn’t explain how I got to London and back to my bed in the space of about five minutes… but then Voldemort’s about the most powerful wizard in the world, apart from Dumbledore, it’s probably no problem at all to him to transport people like that.

  And then, with a terrible stab of panic, he thought, but this is insane—if Voldemort’s possessing me, I’m giving him a dear view into the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix right now! He’ll know who’s in the Order and where Sirius is… and I’ve heard loads of stuff I shouldn’t have, everything Sirius told me the first night I was here…

  There was only one thing for it: he would have to leave Grimmauld Place straightaway. He would spend Christmas at Hogwarts without the others, which would keep them safe over the holidays at least… but no, that wouldn’t do, there were still plenty of people at Hogwarts to maim and injure. What if it was Seamus, Dean or Neville next time? He stopped his pacing and stood staring at Phineas Nigellus’s empty frame. A leaden sensation was settling in the pit of his stomach. He had no alternative: he was going to have to return to Privet Drive, cut himself off from other wizards entirely.

  Well, if he had to do it, he thought, there was no point hanging around. Trying with all his might not to think how the Dursleys were going to react when they found him on their doorstep six months earlier than they had expected, he strode over to his trunk, slammed the lid shut and locked it, then glanced around automatically for Hedwig before remembering that she was still at Hogwarts—well, her cage would be one less thing to carry—he seized one end of his trunk and had dragged it halfway towards the door when a snide voice said, “Running away, are we?”

  He looked around. Phineas Nigellus had appeared on the canvas of his portrait and was leaning against the frame, watching Harry with an amused expression on his face.

  “Not running away, no,” said Harry shortly, dragging his trunk a few more feet across the room.

  “I thought,” said Phineas Nigellus, stroking his pointed beard, “that to belong in Gryffindor house you were supposed to be brave! It looks to me as though you would have been better off in my own house. We Slytherins are brave, yes, but not stupid. For instance, given the choice, we will always choose to save our own necks.”

  “It’s not my own neck I’m saving,” said Harry tersely, tugging the trunk over a patch of particularly uneven, moth-eaten carpet right in front of the door.

  “Oh, I see,” said Phineas Nigellus, still stroking his beard, “this is no cowardly flight—you are being noble.”

  Harry ignored him. His hand was on the doorknob when Phineas Nigellus said lazily, “I have a message for you from Albus Dumbledore.”

  Harry span round.

  “What is it?”

  “‘Stay where you are.’”

  “I haven’t moved!” said Harry, his hand still upon the doorknob. “So what’s the message?”

  “I have just given it to you, dolt,” said Phineas Nigellus smoothly. “Dumbledore says, ‘Stay where you are.’”

  “Why?” said Harry eagerly, dropping the end of his trunk. “Why does he want me to stay? What else did he say?”

  “Nothing whatsoever,” said Phineas Nigellus, raising a thin black eyebrow as though he found Harry impertinent.

  Harry’s temper rose to the surface like a snake rearing from long grass. He was exhausted, he was confused beyond measure, he had experienced terror, relief, then terror again in the last twelve hours, and still Dumbledore did not want to talk to him!

  “So that’s it, is it?” he said loudly. “‘Stay where you are’? That’s all anyone could tell me after I got attacked by those Dementors, too! Just stay put while the grown-ups sort it out, Harry! We won’t bother telling you anything, though, because your tiny little brain might not be able to cope with it!”

  “You know,” said Phineas Nigellus, even more loudly than Harry, “this is precisely why I loathed being a teacher! Young people are so infernally convinced that they are absolutely right about everything. Has it not occurred to you, my poor puffed-up popinjay, that there might be an excellent reason why the Headmaster of Hogwarts is not confiding every tiny detail of his plans to you? Have you never paused, while feeling hard-done-by, to note that following Dumbledore’s orders has never yet led you into harm? No. No, like all young people, you are quite sure that you alone feel and think, you alone recognise danger, you alone are the only one clever enough to realise what the Dark Lord may be planning—”

  “He is planning something to do with me, then?” said Harry swiftly.

  “Did I say that?” said Phineas Nigellus, idly examining his silk gloves. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have better things to do than listen to adolescent agonising… good-day to you.”

  And he strolled to the edge of his frame and out of sight.

  “Fine, go then!” Harry bellowed at the empty frame. “And tell Dumbledore thanks for nothing!”

  The empty canvas remained silent. Fuming, Harry dragged his trunk back to the foot of his bed, then threw himself face down on the moth-eaten covers, his eyes shut, his body heavy and aching.

  He felt as though he had journeyed for miles and miles… it seemed impossible that less than twenty-four hours ago Cho Chang had been approaching him under the mistletoe… he was so tired… he was scared to sleep… yet he did not know how long he could fight it… Dumbledore had told him to stay… that must mean he was allowed to sleep… but he was scared… what if it happened again?

  He was sinking into shadows…

  It was as though a film in his head had been waiting to start. He was walking down a deserted corridor towards a plain black door, past rough stone walls, torches, and an open doorway on to a flight of stone steps leading downstairs on the left…

  He reached the black door but could not open it… he stood gazing at it, desperate for entry… something he wanted with all his heart lay beyond… a prize beyond his dreams… if only his scar would stop prickling… then he would be able to think more clearly…

  “Harry,” said Ron’s voice, from far, far away, “Mum says dinner’s ready, but she’ll save you something if you want to stay in bed.”

  Harry opened his eyes, but Ron had already left the room.

  He doesn’t want to be on his own with me, Harry thought. Not after what he heard Moody say.

  He supposed none of them would want him there any more, now that they knew what was inside him.

  He would not go down to dinner; he would not inflict his company on them. He turned over on to his other side and, after a while, dropped back off to sleep. He woke much later, in the early hours of the morning, his insides aching with hunger and Ron snoring in the next bed. Squinting around the room, he saw the dark outline of Phineas Nigellus standing again in his portrait and it occurred to Harry that Dumbledore had probably sent Phineas Nigellus to watch over him, in case he attacked somebody else.

  The feeling of being unclean intensified. He half-wished he had not obeyed Dumbledore… if this was how life was going to be for him in Grimmauld Place from now on, maybe he would be better off in Privet Drive after all.

  * * *

  Everybody else spent the following morning putting up Christmas decorations. Harry could not remember Sirius ever being in such a good mood; he was actually singing carols, apparently delighted that he was to have company over Christmas. Harry could hear his voice echoing up through the floor in the cold drawing room where he was sitting alone, watching the sky growing whiter outside the windows, threatening snow, all the time feeling a savage pleasure that he was giving the others the opportunity to keep talking about him, as they were bound to be doing. When he heard Mrs. Weasley calling his name softly up the stairs around lunchtime, he retreated further upstairs and ignored her.

  Around six o’clock in the evening the doorbell rang and Mrs. Black started screaming again. Assuming that Mundungus or some other Order member had come to call, Harry merely settled himself more comfortably against the wall of Buckbeak’s room where he was hiding, trying to ignore how hungry he felt as he fed dead rats to the Hippogriff. It came as a slight shock when somebody hammered hard on the door a few minutes later.

  “I know you’re in there,” said Hermione’s voice. “Will you please come out? I want to talk to you.”

  “What are you doing here?” Harry asked her, pulling open the door as Buckbeak resumed his scratching at the straw-strewn floor for any fragments of rat he may have dropped. “I thought you were skiing with your mum and dad?”

  “Well, to tell the truth, skiing’s not really my thing,” said Hermione. “So, I’ve come here for Christmas.” There was snow in her hair and her face was pink with cold. “But don’t tell Ron. I told him skiing’s really good because he kept laughing so much. Mum and Dad are a bit disappointed, but I’ve told them that everyone who is serious about the exams is staying at Hogwarts to study. They want me to do well, they’ll understand. Anyway,” she said briskly, “let’s go to your bedroom, Ron’s mum has lit a fire in there and she’s sent up sandwiches.”

  Harry followed her back to the second floor. When he entered the bedroom, he was rather surprised to see both Ron and Ginny waiting for them, sitting on Ron’s bed.