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Dolores Umbridge 15 страница

.  . . You should each take a couple just in case. . . . Puking Pastilles, Nosebleed Nougat, Extendable Ears. . . ”

They gulped down their breakfast, then set off upstairs, Kreacher bowing them out and promising to have a steak-and-kidney pie ready for them when they returned.

“Bless him, ” said Ron fondly, “and when you think I used to fan- tasize about cutting off his head and sticking it on the wall. ” They made their way onto the front step with immense caution: They could see a couple of puffy-eyed Death Eaters watching the house from across the misty square.

Hermione Disapparated with Ron first, then came back for Harry.

After the usual brief spell of darkness and near suffocation, Harry found himself in the tiny alleyway where the first phase of their plan was scheduled to take place. It was as yet deserted, except for a couple of large bins; the first Ministry workers did not usually appear here until at least eight o’clock.

“Right then, ” said Hermione, checking her watch. “She ought to be here in about five minutes. When I’ve Stunned her —”

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“Hermione, we know, ” said Ron sternly. “And I thought we were supposed to open the door before she got here? ”

Hermione squealed.

“I nearly forgot! Stand back —”

She pointed her wand at the padlocked and heavily graffitied fire door beside them, which burst open with a crash. The dark corridor behind it led, as they knew from their careful scouting trips, into an empty theater. Hermione pulled the door back toward her, to make it look as though it was still closed.

“And now, ” she said, turning back to face the other two in the alleyway, “we put on the Cloak again —”

“— and we wait, ” Ron finished, throwing it over Hermione’s head like a blanket over a birdcage and rolling his eyes at Harry.

Little more than a minute later, there was a tiny pop and a little

Ministry witch with flyaway gray hair Apparated feet from them, blinking a little in the sudden brightness; the sun had just come out from behind a cloud. She barely had time to enjoy the unexpected warmth, however, before Hermione’s silent Stunning Spell hit her in the chest and she toppled over.

“Nicely done, Hermione, ” said Ron, emerging from behind a bin beside the theater door as Harry took off the Invisibility Cloak. Together they carried the little witch into the dark passageway that led backstage. Hermione plucked a few hairs from the witch’s head and added them to a flask of muddy Polyjuice Potion she had taken from the beaded bag. Ron was rummaging through the little witch’s handbag.

“She’s Mafalda Hopkirk, ” he said, reading a small card that iden- tified their victim as an assistant in the Improper Use of Magic Of- fice. “You’d better take this, Hermione, and here are the tokens. ”

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 CHAPTER TWELVE

He passed her several small golden coins, all embossed with the letters M. O. M., which he had taken from the witch’s purse. Hermione drank the Polyjuice Potion, which was now a pleasant heliotrope color, and within seconds stood before them, the double of Mafalda Hopkirk. As she removed Mafalda’s spectacles and put them on, Harry checked his watch.

“We’re running late, Mr. Magical Maintenance will be here any second. ”

They hurried to close the door on the real Mafalda; Harry and Ron threw the Invisibility Cloak over themselves but Hermione re-

mained in view, waiting. Seconds later there was another pop, and

a small, ferrety-looking wizard appeared before them.

“Oh, hello, Mafalda. ”

“Hello! ” said Hermione in a quavery voice. “How are you today? ”

“Not so good, actually, ” replied the little wizard, who looked thoroughly downcast.

As Hermione and the wizard headed for the main road, Harry and Ron crept along behind them.

“I’m sorry to hear you’re under the weather, ” said Hermione, talking firmly over the little wizard as he tried to expound upon his problems; it was essential to stop him from reaching the street. “Here, have a sweet. ”

“Eh? Oh, no thanks —”

“I insist! ” said Hermione aggressively, shaking the bag of pastilles in his face. Looking rather alarmed, the little wizard took one. The effect was instantaneous. The moment the pastille touched his tongue, the little wizard started vomiting so hard that he did 

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not even notice as Hermione yanked a handful of hairs from the top of his head.

“Oh dear! ” she said, as he splattered the alley with sick. “Perhaps you’d better take the day off! ”

“No — no! ” He choked and retched, trying to continue on his way despite being unable to walk straight. “I must — today — must go —”

“But that’s just silly! ” said Hermione, alarmed. “You can’t go to work in this state — I think you ought to go to St. Mungo’s and get them to sort you out! ”

The wizard had collapsed, heaving, onto all fours, still trying to crawl toward the main street.

“You simply can’t go to work like this! ” cried Hermione. At last he seemed to accept the truth of her words. Using a re- pulsed Hermione to claw his way back into a standing position, he turned on the spot and vanished, leaving nothing behind but the bag Ron had snatched from his hand as he went and some flying chunks of vomit.

“Urgh, ” said Hermione, holding up the skirts of her robe to avoid the puddles of sick. “It would have made much less mess to Stun him too. ”

“Yeah, ” said Ron, emerging from under the cloak holding the wizard’s bag, “but I still think a whole pile of unconscious bodies would have drawn more attention. Keen on his job, though, isn’t he? Chuck us the hair and the potion, then. ”

Within two minutes, Ron stood before them, as small and ferrety as the sick wizard, and wearing the navy blue robes that had been folded in his bag.

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 CHAPTER TWELVE

“Weird he wasn’t wearing them today, wasn’t it, seeing how much he wanted to go? Anyway, I’m Reg Cattermole, according to the label in the back. ”

“Now wait here, ” Hermione told Harry, who was still under the Invisibility Cloak, “and we’ll be back with some hairs for you. ” He had to wait ten minutes, but it seemed much longer to Harry, skulking alone in the sick-splattered alleyway beside the door concealing the Stunned Mafalda. Finally Ron and Hermione reappeared.

“We don’t know who he is, ” Hermione said, passing Harry several curly black hairs, “but he’s gone home with a dreadful nosebleed! Here, he’s pretty tall, you’ll need bigger robes. . . . ”

She pulled out a set of the old robes Kreacher had laundered for them, and Harry retired to take the potion and change.

Once the painful transformation was complete he was more than six feet tall and, from what he could tell from his well-muscled arms, powerfully built. He also had a beard. Stowing the Invisibility Cloak and his glasses inside his new robes, he rejoined the other two. “Blimey, that’s scary, ” said Ron, looking up at Harry, who now towered over him.

“Take one of Mafalda’s tokens, ” Hermione told Harry, “and let’s go, it’s nearly nine. ”

They stepped out of the alleyway together. Fifty yards along the crowded pavement there were spiked black railings flanking two flights of steps, one labeled gentlemen, the other ladies.

“See you in a moment, then, ” said Hermione nervously, and she tottered off down the steps to ladies. Harry and Ron joined a num- ber of oddly dressed men descending into what appeared to be an or- dinary underground public toilet, tiled in grimy black and white.

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“Morning, Reg! ” called another wizard in navy blue robes as he let himself into a cubicle by inserting his golden token into a slot in the door. “Blooming pain in the bum, this, eh? Forcing us all to get to work this way! Who are they expecting to turn up, Harry Potter? ”

The wizard roared with laughter at his own wit. Ron gave a forced chuckle.

“Yeah, ” he said, “stupid, isn’t it? ”

And he and Harry let themselves into adjoining cubicles. To Harry’s left and right came the sound of flushing. He crouched down and peered through the gap at the bottom of the cubicle, just in time to see a pair of booted feet climbing into the toilet next door. He looked left and saw Ron blinking at him.

“We have to flush ourselves in? ” he whispered. “Looks like it, ” Harry whispered back; his voice came out deep and gravelly.

They both stood up. Feeling exceptionally foolish, Harry clam- bered into the toilet.

He knew at once that he had done the right thing; though he ap- peared to be standing in water, his shoes, feet, and robes remained quite dry. He reached up, pulled the chain, and next moment had zoomed down a short chute, emerging out of a fireplace into the Ministry of Magic.

He got up clumsily; there was a lot more of his body than he was accustomed to. The great Atrium seemed darker than Harry remembered it. Previously a golden fountain had filled the center of the hall, casting shimmering spots of light over the polished wooden floor and walls. Now a gigantic statue of black stone dominated the scene. It was rather frightening, this vast sculpture of a witch and

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 CHAPTER TWELVE

a wizard sitting on ornately carved thrones, looking down at the Ministry workers toppling out of fireplaces below them. Engraved in foot-high letters at the base of the statue were the words magic is might.

Harry received a heavy blow on the back of the legs: Another wizard had just flown out of the fireplace behind him.

“Out of the way, can’t y — oh, sorry, Runcorn! ” Clearly frightened, the balding wizard hurried away. Appar- ently the man whom Harry was impersonating, Runcorn, was intimidating.

“Psst! ” said a voice, and he looked around to see a wispy little witch and the ferrety wizard from Magical Maintenance gesturing to him from over beside the statue. Harry hastened to join them. “You got in all right, then? ” Hermione whispered to Harry. “No, he’s still stuck in the bog, ” said Ron.

“Oh, very funny. . . It’s horrible, isn’t it? ” she said to Harry, who was staring up at the statue. “Have you seen what they’re sitting on?

Harry looked more closely and realized that what he had thought were decoratively carved thrones were actually mounds of carved humans: hundreds and hundreds of naked bodies, men, women, and children, all with rather stupid, ugly faces, twisted and pressed together to support the weight of the handsomely robed wizards. “Muggles, ” whispered Hermione. “In their rightful place. Come on, let’s get going. ”

They joined the stream of witches and wizards moving toward the golden gates at the end of the hall, looking around as surrepti- tiously as possible, but there was no sign of the distinctive figure of Dolores Umbridge. They passed through the gates and into a smaller

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hall, where queues were forming in front of twenty golden grilles housing as many lifts. They had barely joined the nearest one when a voice said, “Cattermole! ”

They looked around: Harry’s stomach turned over. One of the Death Eaters who had witnessed Dumbledore’s death was striding toward them. The Ministry workers beside them fell silent, their eyes downcast; Harry could feel fear rippling through them. The man’s scowling, slightly brutish face was somehow at odds with his magnificent, sweeping robes, which were embroidered with much gold thread. Someone in the crowd around the lifts called sycophan- tically, “Morning, Yaxley! ” Yaxley ignored them.

“I requested somebody from Magical Maintenance to sort out my office, Cattermole. It’s still raining in there. ”

Ron looked around as though hoping somebody else would in- tervene, but nobody spoke.

“Raining. . . in your office? That’s — that’s not good, is it? ” Ron gave a nervous laugh. Yaxley’s eyes widened.

“You think it’s funny, Cattermole, do you? ”

A pair of witches broke away from the queue for the lift and bustled off.

“No, ” said Ron, “no, of course —”

“You realize that I am on my way downstairs to interrogate your wife, Cattermole? In fact, I’m quite surprised you’re not down there holding her hand while she waits. Already given her up as a bad job, have you? Probably wise. Be sure and marry a pureblood next time. ”

Hermione had let out a little squeak of horror. Yaxley looked at her. She coughed feebly and turned away.

“I — I —” stammered Ron.

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 CHAPTER TWELVE

“But if my wife were accused of being a Mudblood, ” said Yaxley,

“— not that any woman I married would ever be mistaken for such filth — and the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforce- ment needed a job doing, I would make it my priority to do that job, Cattermole. Do you understand me? ”

“Yes, ” whispered Ron.

“Then attend to it, Cattermole, and if my office is not completely dry within an hour, your wife’s Blood Status will be in even graver doubt than it is now. ”

The golden grille before them clattered open. With a nod and unpleasant smile to Harry, who was evidently expected to appreci- ate this treatment of Cattermole, Yaxley swept away toward another lift. Harry, Ron, and Hermione entered theirs, but nobody followed them: It was as if they were infectious. The grilles shut with a clang and the lift began to move upward.

“What am I going to do? ” Ron asked the other two at once; he looked stricken. “If I don’t turn up, my wife — I mean, Cattermole’s wife —”

“We’ll come with you, we should stick together —” began Harry, but Ron shook his head feverishly.

“That’s mental, we haven’t got much time. You two find Um- bridge, I’ll go and sort out Yaxley’s office — but how do I stop it raining? ”

“Try Finite Incantatem, ” said Hermione at once, “that should stop the rain if it’s a hex or curse; if it doesn’t, something’s gone wrong with an Atmospheric Charm, which will be more difficult to fix, so as an interim measure try Impervius to protect his belongings —” “Say it again, slowly —” said Ron, searching his pockets des- perately for a quill, but at that moment the lift juddered to a halt.

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A disembodied female voice said, “Level four, Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, incorporating Beast, Being, and Spirit Divisions, Goblin Liaison Office, and Pest Advi- sory Bureau, ” and the grilles slid open again, admitting a couple of wizards and several pale violet paper airplanes that fluttered around the lamp in the ceiling of the lift.

“Morning, Albert, ” said a bushily whiskered man, smiling at Harry. He glanced over at Ron and Hermione as the lift creaked upward once more; Hermione was now whispering frantic instruc- tions to Ron. The wizard leaned toward Harry, leering, and mut- tered, “Dirk Cresswell, eh? From Goblin Liaison? Nice one, Albert. I’m pretty confident I’ll get his job now! ”

He winked. Harry smiled back, hoping that this would suffice. The lift stopped; the grilles opened once more.

“Level two, Department of Magical Law Enforcement, includ- ing the Improper Use of Magic Office, Auror Headquarters, and Wizengamot Administration Services, ” said the disembodied witch’s voice.

Harry saw Hermione give Ron a little push and he hurried out of the lift, followed by the other wizards, leaving Harry and Hermione alone. The moment the golden door had closed Hermione said, very fast, “Actually, Harry, I think I’d better go after him, I don’t think he knows what he’s doing and if he gets caught the whole thing —” “Level one, Minister of Magic and Support Staff. ”

The golden grilles slid apart again and Hermione gasped. Four people stood before them, two of them deep in conversation: a long- haired wizard wearing magnificent robes of black and gold, and a squat, toadlike witch wearing a velvet bow in her short hair and clutching a clipboard to her chest.

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THE MUGGLE-BORN REGISTRATION COMMISSION

h. Mafalda! ” said Umbridge, looking at Hermione. “Trav- ers sent you, did he? ”

“Y-yes, ” squeaked Hermione.

“Good, you’ll do perfectly well. ” Umbridge spoke to the wizard in black and gold. “That’s that problem solved, Minister, if Ma- falda can be spared for record-keeping we shall be able to start straightaway. ” She consulted her clipboard. “Ten people today and one of them the wife of a Ministry employee! Tut, tut. . . even here, in the heart of the Ministry! ” She stepped into the lift beside Hermione, as did the two wizards who had been listening to Umbridge’s conversation with the Minister. “We’ll go straight down, Mafalda, you’ll find everything you need in the courtroom. Good morning, Albert, aren’t you getting out? ”

“Yes, of course, ” said Harry in Runcorn’s deep voice. Harry stepped out of the lift. The golden grilles clanged shut behind him. Glancing over his shoulder, Harry saw Hermione’s

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 THE MUGGLE-BORN REGISTRATION COMMISSION

anxious face sinking back out of sight, a tall wizard on either side of her, Umbridge’s velvet hair-bow level with her shoulder.

“What brings you up here, Runcorn? ” asked the new Minister of Magic. His long black hair and beard were streaked with silver, and a great overhanging forehead shadowed his glinting eyes, putting Harry in mind of a crab looking out from beneath a rock.

“Needed a quick word with, ” Harry hesitated for a fraction of a second, “Arthur Weasley. Someone said he was up on level one. ” “Ah, ” said Pius Thicknesse. “Has he been caught having contact with an Undesirable? ”

“No, ” said Harry, his throat dry. “No, nothing like that. ” “Ah, well. It’s only a matter of time, ” said Thicknesse. “If you ask me, the blood traitors are as bad as the Mudbloods. Good day, Runcorn. ”

“Good day, Minister. ”

Harry watched Thicknesse march away along the thickly carpeted corridor. The moment the Minister had passed out of sight, Harry tugged the Invisibility Cloak out from under his heavy black cloak, threw it over himself, and set off along the corridor in the opposite direction. Runcorn was so tall that Harry was forced to stoop to make sure his big feet were hidden.

Panic pulsed in the pit of his stomach. As he passed gleaming wooden door after gleaming wooden door, each bearing a small plaque with the owner’s name and occupation upon it, the might of the Ministry, its complexity, its impenetrability, seemed to force itself upon him so that the plan he had been carefully concocting with Ron and Hermione over the past four weeks seemed laughably childish. They had concentrated all their efforts on getting inside without being detected: They had not given a moment’s thought to

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 CHAPTER THIRTEEN

what they would do if they were forced to separate. Now Hermi- one was stuck in court proceedings, which would undoubtedly last hours; Ron was struggling to do magic that Harry was sure was beyond him, a woman’s liberty possibly depending on the outcome; and he, Harry, was wandering around on the top floor when he knew perfectly well that his quarry had just gone down in the lift. He stopped walking, leaned against a wall, and tried to decide what to do. The silence pressed upon him: There was no bustling or talk or swift footsteps here; the purple-carpeted corridors were

as hushed as though the Muffliato charm had been cast over the

place.

Her office must be up here,   Harry thought.

It seemed most unlikely that Umbridge would keep her jewelry in her office, but on the other hand it seemed foolish not to search it to make sure. He therefore set off along the corridor again, pass- ing nobody but a frowning wizard who was murmuring instruc- tions to a quill that floated in front of him, scribbling on a trail of parchment.

Now paying attention to the names on the doors, Harry turned a corner. Halfway along the next corridor he emerged into a wide, open space where a dozen witches and wizards sat in rows at small desks not unlike school desks, though much more highly polished and free from graffiti. Harry paused to watch them, for the effect was quite mesmerizing. They were all waving and twiddling their wands in unison, and squares of colored paper were flying in every direc- tion like little pink kites. After a few seconds, Harry realized that there was a rhythm to the proceedings, that the papers all formed the same pattern; and after a few more seconds he realized that what he was watching was the creation of pamphlets — that the paper

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squares were pages, which, when assembled, folded, and magicked into place, fell into neat stacks beside each witch or wizard.

Harry crept closer, although the workers were so intent on what they were doing that he doubted they would notice a carpet-muffled footstep, and he slid a completed pamphlet from the pile beside a young witch. He examined it beneath the Invisibility Cloak. Its pink

cover was emblazoned with a golden title:

ey Pose t

o

y

od Societ

MUDBLOODS angers Th

“What, has she got magic ears as well as an eye, now? ” The witch glanced toward the shining mahogany door facing the space full of pamphlet-makers; Harry looked too, and rage reared in him like a snake. Where there might have been a peephole on a Muggle front door, a large, round eye with a bright blue iris had been set into the wood — an eye that was shockingly familiar to anybody who had known Alastor Moody.

For a split second Harry forgot where he was and what he was

? 249‘

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