Dolores Umbridge 2 страница

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 had 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? ”

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CHAPTER ONE

“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 own wand and com- pared the lengths. Lucius Malfoy made an involuntary movement; for a fraction of a second, it seemed he expected to receive Volde- mort’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 displeases 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 shud- der as the hissing grew louder; something heavy could be heard sliding across the floor beneath the table.

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THE DARK LORD ASCENDING

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 re- turn, 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? ”

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CHAPTER ONE

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 great 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’ hu- miliation. Bellatrix’s face, so recently flushed with 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.

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THE DARK LORD ASCENDING

“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 fire- light, 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 wand-free 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 Witch- craft 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

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CHAPTER ONE

wizards all about Muggles. . . how they are not so different from us. . . ”

One of the Death Eaters spat on the floor. Charity Burbage re- volved 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 knowl-

edge 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.

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C H A P T E R T W O

IN MEMORIAM

arry 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 trod- den 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 frag- ments 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 ad- mit 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

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CHAPTER TWO

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 previ- ously, 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 retriev-

ing an old badge that flickered feebly between SUPPORT CEDRIC

DIGGORY and POTTER STINKS, a cracked and worn-out Sneak-

oscope, 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 frag- ment 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

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IN MEMORIAM

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 at- tacking the rest of the rubbish in the trunk.

It took another hour to empty it completely, throw away the use- less 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, proba- bly, as if they were the 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 the news- papers, throwing them onto 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

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CHAPTER TWO

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 undoubt- edly due to the fact that we both felt ourselves to be outsiders. I had con-

tracted dragon pox shortly before arriving at school, and while I was no longer contagious, my pock- marked visage and greenish hue did not encour- age 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 mis-

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IN MEMORIAM

taken: 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 ben- efited from his example, not to mention his help and encouragement, with which he was always generous. He confessed to me in later 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 Waf- fling, 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,

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CHAPTER TWO

Albus’s brother, Aberforth, arrived at school. They were not alike; Aberforth was never bookish and, unlike Albus, preferred to settle arguments by duel- ing rather than through reasoned discussion. How- ever, 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 alto- gether 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 pur- suing our separate careers. However, tragedy inter- vened. 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 depar- ture 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 insen- sitively, the wonders of my journey, from narrow es- capes from chimaeras in Greece to the experiments

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IN MEMORIAM

of the Egyptian alchemists. His letters told me little of his day-to-day life, which I guessed to be frustrat- ingly 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 yet 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 broth- ers. All those closest to Albus — and I count my- self 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 light- hearted. 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 fol- lowing years. Dumbledore’s innumerable contribu- tions to the store of Wizarding knowledge, including

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CHAPTER TWO

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 he made 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 do battle. Dumbledore’s triumph, and its consequences for the Wizarding world, are consid- ered 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 human- ity and sympathy. I shall miss his friendship more than I can say, but my loss is as nothing compared to the Wizarding world’s. That he was the most inspir- ing and the 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 that I met him.

Harry finished reading but continued to gaze at the picture ac- companying the obituary. Dumbledore was wearing his familiar,

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IN MEMORIAM

kindly smile, but as he peered over the top of his half-moon spec- tacles, 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

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CHAPTER TWO

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. Stripping 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 Minister of Magic content to remain a mere head- master? 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,

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IN MEMORIAM

exclusively interviewed by Betty 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 im- age, 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 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

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of Elphias Doge, Special Advisor to the Wizen- gamot and longstanding friend of Albus Dumble- dore’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 re- ally feel that four short weeks have been enough to gain a full picture of Dumbledore’s long and ex- traordinary life?

“Oh, my dear, ” beams Skeeter, rapping me affec- tionately 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 journal- ists would swap their wands for, one who has never spoken in public before and who was close to Dum- bledore during the most turbulent and disturbing phase of his youth. ”

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IN MEMORIAM

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?